Trouble — Could We make it Our Servant? Part 4

Tip! The closer one gets to Christ the more sensitive he will be to pain, to little, petty, mean ways and all the train of unkind and unlovely things which would vex the heart and tarnish the spirit.

Someone learned of a real injustice done me in material things one time, and he was horrified to know it came from a Christian source. Such treatment as that," he said, "is absolutely wrong. I would not stand for it."

Of course it was wrong and very unfair, and at times I was amazed and tried, but I kept my heart and life open for justice and the right thing to be done by me; however, I was neglected and seemingly forgotten. But God had taken me quite a long distance on the road and I knew He would take care of the matter; so I took of His grace and love and stood it. It never caused me a resentful spirit, nor did I allow the hurt and the disappointment to fester into a sore. And today I praise God for the realities of His life in my heart to keep it sweet when trouble and unfair dealings would chill it to indifference and hardness.

Had we time we could trace through history, both sacred and secular, scores of noble men and women who were not spared the hard places in life. They were good, moral, kind, noble, and yet came under the disciplinary measures of trouble. Certainly Paul knew trouble or he never could have written, "In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck" (2 Cor. 11:23-25). Yet out of it all he comes purified and strengthened, a noble expression of God's grace and an example for the ages to come that trouble may be used to build a Christian character.

In the Old Testament we find Joseph and Job and many others demonstrating the same truth. Surely Joseph might have said, "All these things are against me. Where is God? Why do "I" have to put up with all this confusion and trouble when He promised me great victory and triumph?" Yet listen to him after in faith he comes through, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" (Gen. 50:20). We are following in the steps of Christ, who said that the servant was not above his lord. And we read of Him, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."

Tip! As Christians, after we are convinced in our hearts that trouble is not designed to defeat us and is not a mere nuisance or cruelty, but is one of the corrective elements in great living, we must learn how to use it the way God wants us to use it.

What are you seeking in your trouble today? Is it deliverance or development? You may have the one and not grow, or you may have both and grow. Get the development first and the deliverance will be yours, too. Let this servant minister to you in a way no other servant can. Take the positive attitude and use your trouble as one of the most skillful and wonderful instruments God ever placed into your hands for the working out of the character of Christ to be duplicated in you.

Trouble, if correctly used, will bring you great peace and a deep surrender of spirit which nothing else can work in you. I have not gone far on the way but I can give as my personal testimony that these deeper revelations of truth and clear understanding of the things of God have come only through suffering. I cannot offer you any other method. May God grant you grace to take your share of "trouble". Don't pray for exemption, but may He teach you and use this strange servant to build your life into noble proportions of strength and beauty, and from your life healing streams of understanding and love will flow to broken lives and timid, fearful hearts "For he who suffers most has most to give."