Does God care about the stress I am facing?

Hardship doesn’t necessarily bring about growth in our lives. Struggles and growth aren’t necessarily mutually inclusive. Sometimes, pain can keep you spinning where you are, or worse yet, send you backward.

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  The Answer: Authentic Faith for an Uncertain World (The Holy Bible, New Century Version)

  Price: Check on Amazon

Struggle and pain invade our lives with change and stress in much, the same way as sand invades the oyster. Stress can be defined as anything that pushes us away from our equilibrium in any area – physically, emotionally, or sameness, and we resist change. Newton’s law of inertia says that “a body at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force.”

Well, it’s those outside forces, those disruptive moments, those pains and struggles, those stresses and changes that come no matter what we do. Some people face a challenge and use it as springboard to grow. Others allow misfortunes to define them and determine the course of the rest of their lives. In the same way, the pearl takes on a similar luster and color to that of the shell’s lining. Only some of the pearl-forming mollusks produce the beautifully colored nacre hat is essential for the valuable pearls. Others have dull shells, so their pearls never develop luster.

God does His part by working on us from His hidden spot. But to become of value to the kingdom, we must grow. Mature as a Christian. This involves the process of conforming to the image of Jesus or as 1 John 3:2 tell us “to be like him.” The process is never that God began the good work in us, and He is able to complete it by the time we finally reach heaven.

By Dr. Lynda Hunter and Image by geralt pixabay

Source: The Answer: Authentic Faith for an Uncertain World (The Holy Bible, New Century Version) page 521 – Check on Amazon.

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