Well, for one thing; yes, it does build character! If life was all fun & games, if it was all smooth sailing, with no opposition, we'd most like get fat & lazy; we'd start to feel so comfortable & confident in our own strength, thinking that we had it all covered & loose sight of our need for our Heavenly Father's Providence! If we had it all made, how quickly, do you think, would we forget our basic human need for Daily Communion with our Lord & His Body! What Comfort we receive from His Covenant would soon lack luster in our eyes as we become more & more satisfied with our own provender, our own righteousness!
Divorce, separation, heart attacks, leukemia, all manner of illness, family troubles, you name it; if it might happen to you, it most likely will: it seems that no one is immune, not even the best of us! It's only natural; when things like this begin to happen to us or those we love, to turn our gaze inwardly & ask ourselves, 'what did I do?' Sometimes it IS our own stupidity or just plain bad choices, that brings whatever sort of trial upon us, but as often it is simply glorious, messy & beautiful Kingdom Life! Not that things happen for no reason, for it's usually the bad choices of SOMEBODY that causes SOMETHING to not work the way that it should & voila; SOMEBODY else ( usually ) has a trial to suffer through!
Some might object that there's nothing wrong with smooth sailing & that having it all made is not a bad thing! Just because we have all our ducks in a row doesn't mean that we're going to automatically loose sight of the blessings of communion, nor does it mean that we would immediately lose sight of our Covenant & trust in our own several abilities! It is true that we, in Christ, possess the Strength within ourselves to persevere through any trial that comes our way, but just as with biology; if you don't use it, you lose it! Well, we'll NEVER lose the Strength of Christ, but what happens when we don't exercise? We lose tone; the strength may be there still, but because we have become fat & lazy ( confident & complacent ) through lack of exercise of that strength, our biology may atrophy, forgetting how to employ that strength in various ways!
Life in this Glorious ( but dangerous ) Kingdom of our God & Father is much the same way; we may obediently follow His Word & Way, our eyes may not lose sight of the Strength within us & our exercise of the Freedom that we have in Christ will grant us the Peace that passes all understanding! Even though we experience smooth sailing through the turmoil of life, there will always be those around us, however far or near, who do not have that Peace! Unavoidably, we come in contact with those who do not have that Strength, who trust in their own pitiful weakness to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, so to speak!
When we involve ourselves in the affairs of this life, it is impossible not to be touched or affected by the bad choices that others make, not to mention the ones that we make daily! The way that we face or treat these trials, though, determine how those trials affect us! Divorce happens; it's ugly, but it happens: it's an evil, but sometimes the separation of a husband & wife is the best thing for all involved! Heart attacks, leukemia & other assorted illnesses are another matter, one which is loathsome & indicative of one of our greatest problems, physically speaking, in our nation today!
As we live this adventure we call Life, as we stroll through this world in the Grandest Journey; let us always remember the Strength that we have at our command! We can overcome the effects of the bad choices others have made & we can ourselves learn from the mistakes that we have made, as well as those of others & use the trials to build not only our own character but the character of those within our sphere of influence!
To this End, let us welcome those beautiful storms of life! Let's use them to build the Kingdom of our Father & as we build, those storms will begin to have less & less of the devastating effect that we're so used to seeing & hearing all around us! May we ever persevere in the Beautiful Storms of Life!
No comments:
Post a Comment