My fellow sufferer,
To be completely blunt, these past few months have been really tough for me. Life has not been fair to me. I’ve gone through so much emotional pain and physical hurt that I wasn’t sure what to do anymore.
Have you ever been where I am? Where I was??
Things just not going your way. Life hurts.?
Maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend dumped you, maybe your spouse threw out the “D” word, maybe you’ve lost a close friend or family member … maybe even a child.
Yeah. It hurts, right??
It feels as if the whole world is falling in on you.?
Like you have nowhere to go … like you’re being crushed on all sides.
Yep. I know that feeling.
What if I told you that God is using that for your ultimate good, and that He knows exactly what you are going through … and that He is even allowing these things to happen in your life … crazy, right??
But listen to me.?
God uses the hard times in our lives to make us look more like His Son!
Scripture is clear about how God uses suffering and affliction for our purification and transformation to look more like Jesus.
Consider these verses:
“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.”
(Isaiah 48:10)
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”
(Rev. 3:19)
Heck, the whole book of Job.
God allows, and uses, the hard times of our lives to shape us and mold us.
He is working all things for the good of those who are called according to his purpose and love Him (Romans 8:28).?
That doesn’t mean that right now, in this moment, you are seeing the good that is coming of this pain and hurt … but in the future—when it’s over and you look back—you will see how God really is using this for your good.
If you want a prime (one of many) example of how God uses bad in our lives to work for the good of those who love Him, look at Joseph in the Old Testament.
Thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers, framed, and even imprisoned for years, Joseph finally was set in a place of power. Eventually, he became literally second in command over Egypt and developed a unique way for food storage; so he was able to save and provide food for his family—including his brothers who already did so much negativity to him!
Do you think Joseph was always happy-go-lucky about his situation??
You think he was OK with what he was going through?
Probably not.
He probably thought it sucked real bad.
But in the end, Joseph was able to say these words in spirit and truth:?
“What you intended for evil, God used it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen. 50:20)
He was able to boldly and confidently tell his family that what they had intended for evil, God used for good.
