GROWTH COMES THRU ADVERSITY

Man! What a week! I’m beginning to think that I ought to stop writing about adversity! It seems as if I have had no loss of it in my life since I began this particular string of posts. This past week, I had a bad reaction to some medicine and woke up in the emergency room of the hospital! I thought medicine was supposed to help, not hurt. But when I think about it, that’s the way life is. You go thru adversity and you keep going. It’s not about how hard you get hit, it’s about how you keep moving forward.

Frederick Nietzsche said, "Every talent must unfold itself in fighting." He's saying that growth in any area of your life comes with a price -- and that price is struggle. We experience very little that’s worthwhile in life without some kind of adversity -- the adversity of opposition, the adversity of lost sleep, the adversity of financial pressure, the adversity of loneliness, the adversity of delayed gratification. Even the adversity of the emergency room. A price must first be paid. I wouldn’t have discovered my allergy to that medicine if I hadn’t been taken to the ER. Things could have been much, much worse.

In Ephesians 6, Paul knew that he was in the midst of a fight. He knew that in order to become the man of God he wanted to be, he must daily enter the battlefield to contend with an enemy: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12 NKJV)

It will do us good to remember that we are engaged in battle, day-in, day-out. It's not a struggle that can be seen with the human eye, but it can certainly be felt with the human spirit. This struggle cannot be avoided; it must be confronted. On the other side, however, victory awaits us, because we do not fight unarmed. We carry with us the full armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit and the helmet of salvation.

Peter tells us not to be surprised at the fiery trials we face; they're part of the process of growing in Christ. Every talent must unfold itself in fighting; growth comes through struggle.

So no matter where you may be facing adversity - in a relationship, at work, in your walk with God – the obstacle will not disappear on its own. It belongs there. You are called to confront it, through the power of Christ within you, until you can emerge victorious!

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