God can accomplish much in our adversities

When we are right "smack-dab" in the middle of adversity, it may be difficult to remember that God can use our troubles to accomplish His purposes.
In fact, when we are in the middle of troubles, it's hard to shed the anxiety and think with discernment. But wisdom tells us that God can channel our adversity for His own use.
For our good.
This week, we have been studying this concept -- I hope that it will help us both now and in the future, when we are faced with adversity.

Sometimes, God can use difficulties to nudge us to look closely at our priorities. Are we spending enough time preserving our relationship with God? Our relationships with others? It's not a bad idea to regularly evaluate the health of our relationships - and then if we need to make changes, to invest the time and effort needed to maintain them. Are we spending time with God? Are we meditating on His Word and memorizing helpful verses? Are we praying regularly? If the answer is "no," or "not as much as we should," then we are missing out on one of the most vital ways that God uses to give us wisdom and to mold us in His image. We are also robbing others of the spiritual encouragement and testimonies that we could share with them, if only we were diligently spending time with Him.

We may get ourselves into trouble because we try to do more than what God intended for us to do.

In vain you rise early    and stay up late,toiling for food to eat—    for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:2)

Are we often wishing for "more hours in the day"? If we have more projects or more responsibilities than we can handle in each day, or if we have more than we can manage to do in six days, we may have undertaken more work than God intended for us to do!

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (Exodus 20:9)

Third, adversity also shows us our true friends. Trouble strain relationships. Big time! Have you ever experienced the impact of difficulties on friendship? Hardships often reveal if people who we have named as our friends want to give or to get. (Grin) We may have always thought a certain friend was the most awesome, the closest, the one we could ALWAYS count on, the one who would never, ever walk away . . . we might find out differently.  My grandma called them "fair-weather friends." And she was right. There are some folks who don't want to stick around in our trials. They don't want to hear us talk about our difficulties, nor are they interested in brain-storming solutions. They think we are "whining." They don't want to put their shoulder to the wheel beside ours. Too much stress. Too much drama. (And it doesn't seem to matter if we have helped THEM through a rough spot or two!)

Grandma was right; our true friends are there in the midst of the storms and the driving rain. They will still be by our side to offer support and encouragement.

A friend loves at all times,    and a brother is born for a time of adversity. (Proverbs 17:17)

Lastly, trials prepare us to comfort others. One of the most valuable results of adversity is that through it we receive God's comfort -- which we then can share with others who face similar troubles. You know, it's one thing to try to encourage others, even with our Bibles in our hands. Sure, we can tell someone what God can do. But it is a "whole different ball game" when we have been there ourselves. Sometimes God can use our adversity because He sees our opportunity coming. He's already been there, so He knows when someone else will need the benefit of our experience. When adversity strikes, where better to seek help than in the family of God? Who better to minister to a grieving spouse, an estranged parent, or a newly-diagnosed cancer patient?

As I studied for this post, I discovered a concept that made so much sense to me! Listen carefully, if you will, to the Spirit as we read here . . .
We usually think of the word "redeem" in the sense of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. There is another meaning for the word that really ties in to our study. Here is an excerpt from a Bible dictionary:

 To purchase back; to ransom; to liberate or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation or liability to suffer or to be forfeited, by paying an equivalent; as, to redeem prisoners or captured goods; to redeem a pledge. (KJV Dictionary, emphasis mine)

It is a sweet thing to see believers redeem their suffering by taking their eyes off their troubles and turning them toward God to find His strength -- and then looking toward others to share the comfort that God has given to them. I have experienced this in my own life; I believe that it's part of God's plan. It's not His plan for us to allow our suffering to become an excuse to keep our troubles hidden or to simply turn inward and focus on ourselves. Instead, we show the world a beautiful picture of the gospel and the comfort of Jesus as we let others in to see our weakness. We can tell them that we have been there, and that we have learned Christ's strength is strong enough for us, and for them; it's strong enough for their troubles, their suffering, their pain. We "preach" the goodness of His gospel as we work as one of His means of comfort for them. Then (and here's the kicker. Are you ready for it?) we will redeem our own suffering by realizing one of God's good purposes for it.
God comforts us so that we can comfort others.
He grants us mercy so that we can show mercy to others.
God stands whole-heartedly with us in our adversity, so that we can stand whole-heartedly with others who are suffering.
He NEVER leaves us alone in our pain so that we won't leave others alone in theirs.
We have grace to share because we have received so much of it ourselves!
I mentioned that some years back, I was able to experience this firsthand. Having lived through (by His grace) estrangement from one of our children, it was my privilege to come alongside a suffering mom and comfort her as she dealt with estrangement from one of her own. When people come to members of the family of God "running on empty," God wants us to fuel up our believer brothers and sisters! He wants us to walk with them through their pain.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.  (II Corinthians 1:3-5)

Adversity does bring us pain. But it's not an end in itself. God can use our trials to accomplish His purposes!

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, (II Corinthians 4:16-17)