Keys to Overcome Difficulties

1. We must remember that the important thing is not "why" suffering comes, but "how" we meet it.

Suffering can make us bitter or better. It will do one of the two. It is up to us! The real question is not "what's behind my suffering?" but "what's in me?" You can use suffering as a tool for improving your life or as an excuse for getting mad at God! A missionary and his wife in Pakistan had a six-month-old baby who became ill with a mysterious fever and died in a single day. A wise man told them: "A tragedy like this is like being plunged into boiling water. If you are an egg, your affliction will make you hard boiled and unresponsive; if you are a potato, you will emerge soft and pliable, and useable." We need to learn to pray when suffering comes, "Oh, Lord, let me be a potato." 

2. We must remember that suffering does not defeat or thwart the purposes of God. 

Romans 8.28 - " And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Tragedy, disaster, sorrow, and calamity do not frustrate God's purposes. Our problem is that we look at things from the wrong side. 

My aunt does counted cross stitch designs. If you look at the work from the bottom it seems to be only a tangled mass of threads but on top a beautiful design is being worked out in intricate pattern. God did not send Paul's "thorn in the flesh"--Satan did; but God used it for Paul's good! Paul was a better man because of it. No matter what happens, God can arrange matters so that it fits into His pattern!

3. We must remember to trust God and rely on Him whatever comes.

We do not understand all that happens. We do not have all the facts. Our vision is limited; we see from an earthly vantage point instead of from eternity. We must, therefore, trust in the wisdom, power, and love of God! This is the message of the Book of Job! God didn't tell Job "why"! He said "trust me!" 

A farmer watched a mocking bird building her nest in a heap of branches pruned from the apple tree beside the house. All day long the bird toiled; in the evening the farmer destroyed the work she had done--scattering tiny twigs about and trampling them under his feet. The next day the bird patiently began building again. Again at evening time her work was destroyed. Judged by bird standards, the man was cruel. The third day she began her nest again, but this time in the rose bush by the kitchen door. In the evening, the farmer smiled on the bird and her work remained. Day after day she continued to build; the nest was completed; the eggs were laid and warmed beneath her bosom. But long before the time for hatching, the pile of branches from which she had been driven had been removed and burned. Had the far seeing farmer allowed the bird to have her way, all of her nest, her little ones, and her hope for the season would have been destroyed. She did not see beyond one day. He saw the end from the beginning.

Since God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46.10,) we can trust Him in all things--even those which we cannot understand! Jesus said something in a different connection which also applies very well in this connection: "What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter." (John 13.7.)

In this life we "do groan, beinq troubled..." (2 Cor. 5.4.) But we believe that there is a better land--a land where suffering and sorrow are unknown. God has prepared a home for us there and to that home He wishes us to come. Were it not for the heartaches, disappointments and sufferings of this world, we might forget the greater destiny that lies before us. Perhaps the sufferings of this world were designed, in part, to cause us nor to be satisfied here, but to lift our eyes toward that world to come where "He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more." (Rev. 21.4.) 

Those who have this hope, need never fear tomorrow! Is this hope yours...? It Can Be!