A Bundle of Difficulties
Have you ever noticed that most trials come in batches and bundles?
In one year, a pastor I know suffered through the loss of his father, an attack of kidney stones (perhaps the most painful ordeal any man can go through), and then a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Later that year, a staff member resigned due to a moral failure. This four-pronged attack just about took my breath away – and I wasn’t even the one feeling the pain!
During the same year, a good friend of mine watched his daughter fight off a serious infection, discovered that his mother had Alzheimer’s, and then had one of the most difficult business years of any self-employed person I know. His business entirely depends on two items: the phone and his computer. Someone misappropriated his toll-free number; his phone system crashed two times; a computer glitch lost vital information; an allegedly Christian client cheated him out of tens of thousands of dollars – and then accused my friend of cheating him! When I spoke to him, his deadened voice told me something very wrong had happened. Life had broken him, but he remained solid in his faith and commitment to God.
Why do these bundles of trials seem so common? Why do I not even feign surprise anymore when earnest believers lay out similar stories as they desperately seek direction?
We have only one way to become mature and complete in God. We must develop the difficult but crucial discipline of perseverance. Jesus said that only through perseverance do we bear fruit: “The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15, emphasis added).
There’s only one way to develop perseverance. We have to surrender to God as we feel pushed past the human breaking point. We have to reach the threshold of exhaustion, and then get pushed even further. One trial can help us deal with fear. Two trials can lead to wisdom. But perseverance? That takes a bundle of difficulties.
Sacred Parenting, 144-45
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