We spent a long day hiking a mountain near Lake Tahoe, California. The next day our legs were sore, and even the kids moved a little more slowly and stiffly. You know what that’s like, don’t you? After a long, hard day of any physical activity, you have DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness. Exercise puts teeny tiny tears in your muscles. When your muscles heal, they knit back together and get stronger. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? Usually if you tear something, you make it weaker, but tearing your muscles makes you stronger than before.
God says the troubles that cause soreness in your heart and life actually make you stronger too. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4 NIV).
This explains why your life is often hard. Troubles don’t come because God doesn't love you anymore. He allows little tears in your life so he can build you up and make you stronger. When you’re lonely, when people tease you, when others think you’re foolish for believing that God created the world in seven days, you open up the Bible and hear what God has to say. You learn to trust him more. Your faith gets stronger. The next time trouble comes, remember that God will use it to build your faith muscles.
Dear God, I don’t think to say thank you for the troubles in my life. Today, though, thank you for using the things that hurt and make me sad to make my faith stronger and bring me closer to you. Amen.
