The Purpose Driven Life,Chapter Twenty Five
Transformed By Trouble
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God has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, he depends more on circumstances to make us like Jesus than he depends on our reading the Bible. The reason is obvious: you face circumstances twenty-four hours a day.
No on is immune to pain or insulated from suffering, and no one gets to skate through life problem-free. Life is a series of problems. Every time you solve one, another is waiting to take its place.
Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days--when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you're out of options, when the pain is great--and when you turn to God alone. It is during suffering that we learn to pray our most authentic, heartfelt, honest-to-God prayers. When we're in pain, we don't have the energy for superficial prayers. We learn things about God in suffering that we can't learn any other way.
Problems force us to look to God and depend on Him instead of ourselves. You'll never know that God is all you need until God is all you've got.
Regardless of the cause, none of your problems could happen without God's permission. Everything that happens to a child of God is Father-filtered, and he intends to use if for good even when Satan and others mean it for bad. Because every day of your lifewas written on God's calendar before you were born, everything that happens to you has spiritual significance.
Our hope in difficult times is not based on positive thinking, wishful thinking, or natural optimism. It is a certainty based on the truths that God is in complete control of our universe and that He loves us.
Your life is not a result of random chance, fate or luck. There is a master plan. God is pulling the strings. We make mistakes, but God never does. God cannot make a mistake--because He is God.
God's plan for your life involves all that happens to you--including your mistakes, your sins and your hurts. It includes illness, debt, disasters, divorce and death of loved ones. God can bring good out of the worst evil. He did at Calvary.
The events in your life work together in God's plan. They are not isolated acts, but interdependent parts of the process to make you like Christ. If you will give God all your distasteful, unpleasant experiences, He will blend them together for good.
Much of what happens in our world is evil and bad, but God specializes in bringing good out of it. God's purpose is greater than our problems, our pain, and even our sin.
This promise is only for God's children. It is not for everyone. All things work for bad for those living in opposition to God and insisting on having their own way.
Every problem is a character-building opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for building spiritual muscle and moral fiber. What happens outwardly in your life is not as important as what happens inside you. Your circumstances are temporary, but your character will last forever.
Since God intends to make you like Jesus, He will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes loneliness, temptation, stress, criticism, rejection, and many other problems.
Problems don't automatically produce what God intends. Many people become bitter, rather than better, and never grow up. You have to respond the way Jesus would.
REMEMBER THAT GOD'S PLAN IS GOOD.
God knows what is best for you and has your best interests at heart. It is vital that you stay focused on God's plan, not your pain or problem. Your focus will determine your feelings. The secret of endurance is to remember that your pain is temporary but your reward will be eternal.
REJOICE AND GIVE THANKS
God doesn't expect you to be thankful for evil, for sin, for suffering, or for their painful consequences in the world. Instead, God wants you to thank Him that He will use your problems to fulfill his purposes. No matter what's happening, you can rejoice in God's love, care, wisdom, power and faithfulness.
We can also rejoice in knowing that God is going through the pain with us. We do not serve a distant and detached God who spouts encouraging cliches safely from the sideline. Instead, He enters into our suffering.
REFUSE TO GIVE UP
Character building is a slow process. When we try to avoid or escape the difficulties in life, we short-circuit the process, delay our growth, and actually end up in a worse kind of pain--the worthless type that accompanies denial and avoidance. When you grasp the eternal consequences of your character development, you'll pray fewer "Comfort me" prayers and more "Conform me" prayers.
You know you are maturing when you begin to see the hand of God in the random, baffling and seemingly pointless circumstances of life.
If you are facing trouble right now, don't ask "Why me?" Instead ask "What do you want me to learn?" Then trust God and keep on doing what's right.
No on is immune to pain or insulated from suffering, and no one gets to skate through life problem-free. Life is a series of problems. Every time you solve one, another is waiting to take its place.
Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days--when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you're out of options, when the pain is great--and when you turn to God alone. It is during suffering that we learn to pray our most authentic, heartfelt, honest-to-God prayers. When we're in pain, we don't have the energy for superficial prayers. We learn things about God in suffering that we can't learn any other way.
Problems force us to look to God and depend on Him instead of ourselves. You'll never know that God is all you need until God is all you've got.
Regardless of the cause, none of your problems could happen without God's permission. Everything that happens to a child of God is Father-filtered, and he intends to use if for good even when Satan and others mean it for bad. Because every day of your lifewas written on God's calendar before you were born, everything that happens to you has spiritual significance.
Our hope in difficult times is not based on positive thinking, wishful thinking, or natural optimism. It is a certainty based on the truths that God is in complete control of our universe and that He loves us.
Your life is not a result of random chance, fate or luck. There is a master plan. God is pulling the strings. We make mistakes, but God never does. God cannot make a mistake--because He is God.
God's plan for your life involves all that happens to you--including your mistakes, your sins and your hurts. It includes illness, debt, disasters, divorce and death of loved ones. God can bring good out of the worst evil. He did at Calvary.
The events in your life work together in God's plan. They are not isolated acts, but interdependent parts of the process to make you like Christ. If you will give God all your distasteful, unpleasant experiences, He will blend them together for good.
Much of what happens in our world is evil and bad, but God specializes in bringing good out of it. God's purpose is greater than our problems, our pain, and even our sin.
This promise is only for God's children. It is not for everyone. All things work for bad for those living in opposition to God and insisting on having their own way.
Every problem is a character-building opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for building spiritual muscle and moral fiber. What happens outwardly in your life is not as important as what happens inside you. Your circumstances are temporary, but your character will last forever.
Since God intends to make you like Jesus, He will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes loneliness, temptation, stress, criticism, rejection, and many other problems.
Problems don't automatically produce what God intends. Many people become bitter, rather than better, and never grow up. You have to respond the way Jesus would.
REMEMBER THAT GOD'S PLAN IS GOOD.
God knows what is best for you and has your best interests at heart. It is vital that you stay focused on God's plan, not your pain or problem. Your focus will determine your feelings. The secret of endurance is to remember that your pain is temporary but your reward will be eternal.
REJOICE AND GIVE THANKS
God doesn't expect you to be thankful for evil, for sin, for suffering, or for their painful consequences in the world. Instead, God wants you to thank Him that He will use your problems to fulfill his purposes. No matter what's happening, you can rejoice in God's love, care, wisdom, power and faithfulness.
We can also rejoice in knowing that God is going through the pain with us. We do not serve a distant and detached God who spouts encouraging cliches safely from the sideline. Instead, He enters into our suffering.
REFUSE TO GIVE UP
Character building is a slow process. When we try to avoid or escape the difficulties in life, we short-circuit the process, delay our growth, and actually end up in a worse kind of pain--the worthless type that accompanies denial and avoidance. When you grasp the eternal consequences of your character development, you'll pray fewer "Comfort me" prayers and more "Conform me" prayers.
You know you are maturing when you begin to see the hand of God in the random, baffling and seemingly pointless circumstances of life.
If you are facing trouble right now, don't ask "Why me?" Instead ask "What do you want me to learn?" Then trust God and keep on doing what's right.