USING OUR DIFFICULTIES
“If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him…” (2 Timothy 2:12)
A professor was talking to a class of college students who were planning to specialize in the teaching of remedial reading, helping youngsters with learning disabilities to improve that all-essential skill.
“How many of you were good readers in high school, ‘A’ or ‘B’ students in English literature?” Most of the hands in the class shot up.
“You will have one disadvantage in teaching poor readers,” he told them. “You’ll have trouble identifying with their problem.”
It is strange, but often true that people who have known a problem first hand and then licked it are better able to help others overcome the same difficulty. Ex-drug addicts are exceptionally good counselors to those trying to overcome drug addiction. Ex-convicts make some of the best rehabilitating agents for men coming out of prison and back into the mainstream of society. And the most effective ministers to the sick of body, mind or soul are often people who have been afflicted with similar problems. Illness of any kind is never welcome nor is it the will of your loving, Heavenly Father that you should suffer, but it is undeniably true that one of the fruits of trouble is a more humble, more sympathetic, more understanding human being. Though at the time suffering is always unwelcome, it may be a stepping stone to service.
O Holy Spirit, give me strength to bear any affliction.
Author Unknown