When adversity strikes our lives the natural response is to ask questions.  What is God’s purpose? What did I do wrong? For what reason did this occur? Why did God permit this trial? How will I survive? When will it all end? Sickness, loss of job, severed relationships, the death of a loved one, emotional distress.  All of these things, and many more, give way to a multitude of questions.

     But I have discovered something: When you know the WHO, you don’t have to know the why, how, what, or when. 

     Jerry Bridges contends, “Trusting God is worked out in the arena that has no boundaries.  We do not know the extent, the duration, or the frequency of the painful, adverse circumstances in which we must trust God. We are always coping with the unknown.”  And perhaps this is the most difficult part of adversity – the unknown.  But I repeat, when you know the WHO, you don’t have to know anything else. 

     Our adversity should always be endured with the understanding that God is loving and kind and would never allow anything into our lives that does not eventually become valuable. As Spurgeon stated, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”