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In the third place, problems provide the provision the Lord gives.
Remember the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
When your back is against the wall, when you cannot see your way clear through the confusion, when life goes from bad to worst and it seems that all is lost, there is always something that you receive as an opportunity to change the things you can with wisdom that comes from pain.
More than that. Struggle is a part of life. Suffering provides an opportunity for growth. Look at all the advancement of modern civilization that have their origin in some misfortune, pain or suffering. Whether it is in the medical field, extreme engineering, training for athletics in all of its varied opportunities, and managing life with all of its challenges.
The poet tells it in language that is quite descriptive:
The tree that never had to fight for sun
and sky and air and light,
that stood out in the open plain,
and always got its share of rain
never became a forest king,
but lived and died a scrubby thing.
The person who never had to toil,
who never had to earn their share of sun
and sky and light and air,
never became a mature person
but lived and died as they began.
Good timber does not grow in ease.
The stronger wind, the tougher trees;
the farther sky, the greater length;
the more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snows,
in tree or man good timber grows.
Where thickest stands the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both,
And they hold converse with the stars
whose broken branches show
the scar of many winds and much of strife
-this is the common law of life.
~Douglas Malloch
Remember the butterfly must struggle to get out of its cocoon to strengthen its wings to fly. You too gain strength to soar beyond and through the painful predicaments you face.
Here we find Paul praying for God to simply remove this ’thorn in his flesh’ from his life.
As we find ourselves buried in bewildering life experiences, doubt, grief, and all sorts of trouble, we want all of it to just go away. Lord just remove it. There are those who may feel abandoned if the problem is not removed.
However, remember God is always present in all of life’s changing scenes, good or bad, happy or sad, sick or healthy, impoverished or abundant. It is God’s abiding presence that gives us courage for all of life’s circumstances, direction for any difficulty and strength for every situation. God is present helping and seeing us through what we are facing.
Are you aware that too much comfort is actually a dangerous thing! Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley conducted an experiment that involved studying an amoeba, a single celled organism. They introduced an amoeba into a perfectly stress-free environment. They provided it with the ideal temperature, optimal concentration of moisture, constant food supply. The amoeba had an environment to which it had to make no adjustments whatsoever. With all of its needs taken care of you would guess that that it was a happy little amoeba. This is because whatever it is that gives amoebas high blood pressure had been taken away.
Do you know what happened? It died! Their conclusion was that apparently all living creatures, even a single celled organism like the amoeba, demands challenge in their life.
We require adaptation to strengthen ourselves to move forward in faith through all of the challenges, hindrances and obstacles that come with life and living. Comfort alone will kill us! The secret of continuing to live is to keep moving and striving or else you will simply atrophy and become limp and weak and unable to do anything.
Consider what it means that challenges, problems and struggles add what is necessary to life for us to grow, mature and be strengthened.
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