When my son was in grade school he sometimes complained of being tired. I asked the doctor if this was an indication that something was wrong. He said to me, “Do you know what hard work it is to grow?”
As I recall those words now I recognize the “ring” of truth in them spiritually. By hard work and study, experience and challenge, we begin to grow in our understanding and accumulate a store of wisdom. If all things are easy, then we are not growing.
The harder the challenges, the greater the growth. And growth does not happen overnight. (Today’s “hurry-up” generation doesn’t like to hear that). It takes time and patience and endurance. It won’t be a one-time experience (although each experience has value), but perhaps a series of many challenges. And when we think we have “arrived”, the Lord may take us in a new direction... where we will be stretched again.
When we ask the Lord for wisdom He just might take us through a certain type of experience as a way of answering us. As we trust Him to guide us, over time we will gain a wider perspective for living and have “riches” to live by.
“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 1:2-3 KJV
© 2014 Arlene Schwartzkopf