What Does the Bible Say About Trouble and Transformation?
“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again” Psalm 71: 20, 21.
I have seen from my own experience that trouble does indeed “increase my greatness”. The more I suffered with a right attitude, gratitude, and faith that it was transforming me, the more the seed within (the word) grew to maturity.
As I continued to walk it the light I’d been given, it eventually produced the fruit of love. To read some of my story click here.
To read Psalm 71 for context, click here.
Love is the perfection of Christian character. It’s being “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing”(James 1:2-4). It is “ceasing from sin” (1 Peter 4: 1). It’s really being filled to a greater measure with the Spirit.
The Connection Between Love and Greatness
And to the degree we possess love, to this degree we are great. We are great because we are mature, strong, wise and emotionally healthy. And who doesn’t respect and admire someone with these qualities?
We’ll also be great because when you’re mature and wise you make good decisions and wise choices. You have goals and dreams and patience to see them through to completion.
Also, God will increase our greatness in ways that only He can. When all is said and done, we have to admit that no matter how wise we are, and no matter how many good choices we make, a lot of our destiny is determined by time and chance.
By being at the right place at the right time. And this is completely out of our control. But it’s where God comes in. He honors those who’ve diligently watered and weeded the seed within (the word of God)by steadfast obedience.
Obedience produces righteousness which is really the fruit of love. And fruit is the product of the mature seed.
Obedience always produces some measure of “trouble”. And the more trouble it produces, the faster the seed grows to maturity. And bears fruit.
What Does the Bible Say About Trouble? Pain Produces Gain
It really is “our many troubles and calamities” that revive our lives. Pain responded to with a good attitude brings about healing and strength and maturity and wisdom.
And this really amounts to our lives being revived. Because if these qualities are ours and increasing we’ll be happy and feel good about ourselves, and have good relationships, and accomplish goals.
Wisdom produces wealth, success and long life. “Long life is in her[wisdom’s] right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor”Proverbs 3: 16. And if this isn’t a definition of “life” I don’t know what is.
This isn’t my idea. I didn’t make this up. It what Proverbs and many other scriptures teach us. And this pain that produces so many blessings often results from obedience.
Whether it’s choosing not to be bitter and full of self-pity in the face of a painful loss, or not eating when we’re “starving to death” because we need to lose weight, or forgiving someone who’s deeply wounded us.
These acts of obedience all involve some degree of pain. It’s hard. It goes against our natural inclination. It’s not the easy choice.
But this is how we grow, produce the fruit of love, gain life and become great.
From Foolish to Wise and Back
But growing up and becoming wise is only the first step in the Christian experience. As we’ve seen, blamelessness and character bring rich rewards. But that’s not the end of the journey.
Once we’ve done the hard work to become wise and are experiencing the benefits, the next step is to give it up for Christ. In other words, to become a fool for Christ. We then have come full circle. We’ve gone from foolish to wise and back to foolish again.
And this is how we attain the kingdom of heaven. We exchange the blessing of this world for the kingdom of heaven. To learn more about this click here: What It Means to be a Fool for Christ.
To read another post similar to What Does the Bible Say About Trouble and Transformation?, see Harvest of Righteousness.