Job 14:1 states, “Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full  of trouble.” In short, life is the quickest of quandaries. A year, a decade, a century, and it’s gone.  Life is a gift, be sure, but it requires guts, grit, and a lot of grace to get through it.  Adversity is part of the journey, and adversity for the believer is often how God chooses to manifest His grace.  As Jerry Bridges said, “God uses adversity to loosen our grip on those things that are not true fruit.”  Loosening the grip leads to joy and gladness, but it often requires the crowbar of contrition on the part of God.

The tragedy, therefore, is not going through a trial…rather, it is going through a trial without learning anything from it. James said, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4).

All believers will inevitably endure some sort of affliction.  So, the question is not whether we will ever face a trial, we will, and we do.  What is in question is: how do we respond when we fall into such divers temptations? Tomorrow we will look at counting it all joy.

Daily Reading: Proverbs 4-6

http://www.seeds4thesoul.com/2019/07/15/july-15-counting-it-joy-part-1/Click the link below to share