God uses adversity to stretch and grow
us for good purposes.
Spiritual
maturity often makes the largest gains in one’s life through adversity. Yet
many only see the hardships and difficulties that come to us as of no value or
useless.
In the early 1900s, the city Enterprise ,
Alabama Enterprise
became the largest producer of peanuts in the United States. Others who refused
to change went bankrupt and lost their businesses.[1]
Insects
had wiped out the livelihood for these cotton farmers. It destroyed some of them, but others changed
their crop and succeeded in a way that would never would have come about
without the infestation.
In
the springtime many gardeners will bring their seedling plants outside in nice
weather in order to harden them up.
Starting the plants indoors provides a safe environment to grow the
plants. But by taking them outside for
several hours each day leading up to the transplanting in the garden; prepares
them for the reality of outdoor weather.
They are being hardened so that they will survive outdoors.
Adversity
is one of the tools that God can use to shape our spiritual character. It is the wind that blows in order to harden
us; strengthening and shaping us for kingdom purposes.
Adversity
is also used by God in order to teach us to be dependent on Him rather than
ourselves. Our natural inclination is to
be self sufficient and self dependent.
But that is not what God desires from His people. He is seeking those who will rely on Him and
lean on Him for their strength, wisdom and life. When adversity strikes; it reminds us and
points us to our need of God.
Adversity
will bring us to the end of our self. We
will have done all we can as we journey
every road we can possibly travel down.
It is when we come to the end of our rope; it is then that we are only
able to hang on and ask God. Often we’ll
even ask for the strength to hang on! It
is then; when we come to the end of our own resources and abilities that God in
essence says, “Now let me help you and show you the way.” For it is at times
like this that our faith proves itself to me more valuable than gold!
Adversity
is also used by God to conform us to be more like Jesus. This is the believer’s foremost goal! By allowing times of suffering and heartache,
the Holy Spirit is able to develop the fruit of the spirit in us (see Galatians 5:22-23). He uses the hardships of life to get our
attention and reveal to us our strengths and weaknesses. Often He will also use
these kinds of experiences in our lives in order for us to help others as they
face challenging times.
1 Peter 1:6-7 (NLT) So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy
ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These
trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests
and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So
when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much
praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the
whole world.
Read: 2Corinthians 1:3-7; 1Peter 1:3-9
