If everyone loved you, how would you ever learn to act Biblically toward those who treat you badly? If you were never ill, how would you learn to be joyful and focused on God during illness?
Believers are in boot camp, we must encounter everything there is to encounter to be able to learn how to act godly through all things while trusting Christ more. The more we trust Christ the less adversity affects us.
The more we focus on Christ the more we can love even when we are not loved back. When we realize that devils are the foundational problem for all the ills of the world, the less we take rejection personally.
God said to count it all joy when we encounter various trials. The more things we experience in life the greater our wisdom grows, as long as we are seeking to learn the lessons God has for us.
James 1:2-8 "2 Count it all joy, my brothers,when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
It is a promise that when we seek God in all matters of life, we will grow in wisdom. Those who think they know it all already, refusing to seek Christ, will remain spiritual babies, tossed too and fro without answers.
I praise God for every single thing I have encountered in my life. Much of it was not pleasant at the time I went through it, but I look back with great joy at the lessons I learned and the strength God brought me.
Our feelings are not who we are, how we act upon them is the real us. We can change our feelings by meditating on the truth in God's Word. The devil uses our feelings to confuse us into thinking we are evil, but often what is happening is that our flesh is emotionally reacting to injustice. The issue is not our feelings, but what we do, whether we go with them or pray against them.
Next time you are tempted to condemn yourselves for "feelings" remember that the devil uses them to create a sense of hopelessness. We are not hopeless in any circumstance, God can work in us in spite of our feelings.
Next time you are tempted to condemn yourselves for "feelings" remember that the devil uses them to create a sense of hopelessness. We are not hopeless in any circumstance, God can work in us in spite of our feelings.