James 1:2-4 (NIV) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
God took Joseph’s trials, the betrayal by his brothers, years of suffering as a slave, falsely accused of adultery, then cast in prison, and polished him. A rough gem stone is valuable, but after it has been cut and lightly hammered to knock off brittle, fractured material, and it has been put in a grinder that uses progressive abrasion using finer and finer grits of harder substances to polish the gem the process increases its value sometimes as much as 80%. After all that Joseph suffered, which caused him to be cut and polished spiritually, he grew to depended on God more and more. When he was ready God elevated him to the highest place next to the Pharaoh. Sometimes our trials can lead to our greatest blessings and God’s greatest victories.
Joseph’s story reminds me of a sermon I heard on Focus on the Family years ago. A minister was telling his story, he had been pastoring a normal little church and reached a plateau in his life and ministry when his life was turned upside down after he and his wife had a severely autistic child. To make a long story short, just having a child that severely handicapped made their home life terribly chaotic and their church was not structured to handle the noise and disruption of an autistic child. His frustration at God rattled his relationship with God and nearly drove him out of the ministry. But just like Joseph, his trials turned into triumph as he developed church programs that focused on how to minister to autistic children, a project that revolutionized his church and turned it into the largest congregation in the community and nationally recognized as a pioneer church for this kind of ministry.
Share what trials you have had in your life and how God turned them to triumph? Explain how those trials have made you into a more balanced person?
*Originally posted as a comment by Dan on Kingdom Quest Blog on July 26, 2009 12:10 AM
About Me
- Tamara Storie
- Listening to the quiet is rare at my house. With five children and a small zoo life often has a way of getting loud and crazy. One small moment in time goes like this... Someone drops the pancakes on the floor, the dog thinks its in doggy heaven, another someone is yelling that the dog is eating breakfast while someone else is trying to save breakfast for the humans in the house. My goal is to take the "moments" in life, look through the eyes of the heart to see the lessons God wants to teach. I hope you will share with me your moments and lessons as well.
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