Even more important than understanding why God allows adversity into our lives, is our personal response to it. The life of Paul and his contemporaries in the faith serve as positive examples of proper Christian response to the pressures of life. Paul may have been often knocked down, but he was never knocked out of the Lord’s service. Remember he said, “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened to me have fallen out rather to the futherance of the gospel.” The problems associated with Christian living in our day are just as real as the pressures faced by Christians in the first century. Our response to pressure is important in advancing the cause of Christ as well.
We sometimes seem to abdicate our responsibility and adopt the role of mere spiritual survivors. When asked about how we are coping we tend to use the old cliché and say, “As well as could be expected under the circumstances.” When all along we know we should, by God’s strength and power, be victorious in all circumstances.
Our proper and Godly response to pressure can turn problems into patience, vexation into victory and tragedy into triumph. The same pressure that can cause a destructive explosion can be harnessed to drive the wheels of progress. Pressure usually produces and the production can be good or bad. Both the Old and New Testaments give many examples of the right and wrong ways God’s people have responded to pressure as they were tested in the crucible of crisis. The mere mention of names such as Job, Jonah, Joseph, Elijah, David and Peter immediately conjures up images of proper and improper responses to the pressures of Christian living.
Someone has said, “A Christian is like a tea bag, he’s not worth much until he’s been through some hot water.” Spiritual hot water is inevitable in the Christian life. Problems, real and imagined, afflict us on every hand. It is tremendously important that as we pass through the trials of life we come out on the other side as a source of blessing to those who may be looking to us for help and encouragement. Our response to adversity may make a real difference in the life of someone else.
One of my most vivid and pleasant memories from my childhood involves working the bellows for my father and uncle, who were both trained by their father as blacksmiths. I would watch as they would heat farm tools in a fiery bed of charcoal, quickly withdraw them, beat them upon an anvil and then quench them in a barrel of water. The tools were then ready for the task of tilling the roughest and rockiest of fields. It sometime takes the pressure of God’s fiery furnace and blows upon the anvil of life to produce sharp and enduring tools for His use in the planting and cultivating of His spiritual harvest.
We sometimes seem to abdicate our responsibility and adopt the role of mere spiritual survivors. When asked about how we are coping we tend to use the old cliché and say, “As well as could be expected under the circumstances.” When all along we know we should, by God’s strength and power, be victorious in all circumstances.
Our proper and Godly response to pressure can turn problems into patience, vexation into victory and tragedy into triumph. The same pressure that can cause a destructive explosion can be harnessed to drive the wheels of progress. Pressure usually produces and the production can be good or bad. Both the Old and New Testaments give many examples of the right and wrong ways God’s people have responded to pressure as they were tested in the crucible of crisis. The mere mention of names such as Job, Jonah, Joseph, Elijah, David and Peter immediately conjures up images of proper and improper responses to the pressures of Christian living.
Someone has said, “A Christian is like a tea bag, he’s not worth much until he’s been through some hot water.” Spiritual hot water is inevitable in the Christian life. Problems, real and imagined, afflict us on every hand. It is tremendously important that as we pass through the trials of life we come out on the other side as a source of blessing to those who may be looking to us for help and encouragement. Our response to adversity may make a real difference in the life of someone else.
One of my most vivid and pleasant memories from my childhood involves working the bellows for my father and uncle, who were both trained by their father as blacksmiths. I would watch as they would heat farm tools in a fiery bed of charcoal, quickly withdraw them, beat them upon an anvil and then quench them in a barrel of water. The tools were then ready for the task of tilling the roughest and rockiest of fields. It sometime takes the pressure of God’s fiery furnace and blows upon the anvil of life to produce sharp and enduring tools for His use in the planting and cultivating of His spiritual harvest.
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