Problems

Problems.  We all have them.  They make our life more, well, interesting.  Don’t you wish you could just take a vacation from your problems?  While that may work for a little while, sooner or later you will have to face them.  Fortunately, God gives us some very practical help on dealing with life’s troubles.  In fact, if we follow what God teaches us in the Bible we can actually profit from our problems.

Rick Warren is one of my favorite writers.  In one of his newsletters he writes, “Some of you are going through some tough times right now.  It’s pretty hard.  God cares.  He cares about you very much.  God sees everything you’re going through.  He’s got your number!  The very hairs of your head are numbered.  He knows exactly where you are. He hasn’t lost your number.  He cares.”

“God has the power to do something about that problem.  He could change it in a snap. He’s a miracle working God.  Why doesn’t He?  Because there’s a greater purpose.  The greater purpose is what He wants to do in you.  God is more interested in building your character than in making life comfortable.  Once you’ve learned those qualities, He may be free to remove that situation.  But there are some things in life we’re never going to be free from on this side of Heaven. They are thorns in the flesh.  We will deal with them and carry them.  Nothing comes into your life without the Heavenly Father’s permission.”

That means that nothing comes into your life unless it crosses God’s desk.  Nothing.  A friend of mine used to always say that your problems will produce one of two results in you.  They will either make you bitter or make you better.  So beginning this week we will spend the next two Sundays learning about how to allow our troubles and problems to make us better, not bitter!

I invite you to join us or listen in via our weekly podcast on our Messages page.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…” ~ James 1:2