Suffering and Perseverance

After I published my last post, I was reading the book of Romans. When I got to chapter five, I had to stop what I was doing and pray. Right there in the third and fourth verse was the answer to my problems.

It says "...but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and character, hope." I have not been rejoicing in my sufferings. Therefore I have not been persevering. Which means I have not been building a Christian character or hope."

This was like a gentle rebuke to me. I had not been persevering! I had given up! The whole passage gave me a renewed vision. The entire situation that I am in is a faith and hope building experience. The words had almost jumped up at me.

That chapter had been laid on my heart earlier in the day. To be honest, I could not remember what it was about. I just knew that God wanted me to read it and I was led to it by His spirit. I had actually been studying Daniel over the few days prior to that.

It never ceases to amaze me that He knows what I need better than I do myself. If I would just listen to Him and ignore my human thinking, stop acting like spoiled child. My tendency is to keep banging my head against the wall, while He is telling me "Stop it, that won't make the wall fall down. You'll only hurt yourself." Mean while, I get a splitting headache.

So for now I will leave the tearing down of walls to God and I will just rejoice in it.