This is a paper i wrote in response to a question that a boy brought up in our sunday school class this past Sunday.
I posted it on our youth group website but thought i would share it
with those of you who are not members of it!
Okay I was going to share some of this in class but
There was not enough time so I decided I would put it all here on facebook!
I just love the question Jonathan asked his mom ( and shared with us in class) "Why when we are going through trials does'nt God just pull us out and then when it is all over bring us back into the world?”
While this would be totally “sweet” in most every humans mind
There are some definite problems to this kind of want.
I like to think of good and bad times as a bowl of lucky charms cereal ( one of my favs. By the way). The “ good times will be represented by the “Marshmallows” the bad of course by the “ Oat stars”.
I do not know about you but I would LOVE to have a bowl with just the “Marshmallows” in it!
That would just be so good and sweet and I am sure all of you can agree.
I can remember as a child picking out just the mallows and eating them instead of the oat stars ( okay I will admit I still do that sometimes today.)
But I was forgetting that the oats are good for you. Yeah the mallows taste good
And are tons more enjoyable than the stars but if I ate just the mallows I would
Prolly get high cholesterol and be totally loaded up on just sugar and would suffer some malnutrition problems and things like that, and sometimes I think we as humans are the same.
We would rather have a life full of goodness. No bad times…. No crying.. No fustration... no pain...
Never not knowing what to do in certain situations just a life of pure goodness and no struggles ( does'nt that just sound great??).
And while that would seem good in the long run it is actually very bad.
Look here what James says about “ bad times” in James 1:2-4
“ My brothers count it all a JOY when you fall into various trials and temptations
knowing this that the testing of your faith produces patience.. and let patience have its perfect work and you will be perfect and complete lacking nothing.”
Sometimes we as Christians forget that bad times are actually for our better!
And for our own good Romans 8:28-29.
It is good that we have a mix of both mallows and stars in our bowl.
Another illustration is of a child who is at the dinner table. The meal is meat and green beans and bread with honey. Now the child of coarse eats the meat and bread with honey very well and gobbles them right up.
But the green beans he is a lot less ample to eat, and it takes some coaxing from the parents and he grudgingly eats them once he realizes that he won’t get to leave the table without. Now what he does not know ( at least while he is eating the green beans and probably won’t learn till much later) is that the green beans were actually good for him! Even better than the meat and bread with honey. Sometimes I think we are also like this child. We are going through life all gun hoe just happy go lucky
( eating our meat and bread with honey) and then God throws a bump in the road ( gives us some grean beans) . We begin to complain and throw fits sometimes but what we do not realize is that God is like that childs parents were! God can see that the “ Green beans” ( bad times) are going to benefit us later down the road.
Lets not forget that trials are good for us! We need not skip out on one whole coarse of our meal and just eat the good stuff! ( like Jonathan and many of us wish too) We need a combination of good and bad. But a problem is
Sometimes we look at other people and they seemingly have “ Easier trials”
Than we do and this causes jealousy to build up within us.
But we are forgetting the ending of that verse in James 1:2
“ Count it a joy when you fall into VARIOUS.”
There are many diverse trials. Take a look at two bible characters who went
Through two separate very different trials.
Job is the first and he as we know lost everything ( his sons daughters, livestock, and even his good health)!
Joseph is the second who got taken away from his family and then later was
Thrown into prison for something he did not even do.
Now Job's from a human standpoint is worse than Joseph's trial comparably speacking! I do not know about you but I would much rather be thrown into prison and taken away from my family rather than losing my family altogether.
But we are forgetting that not all bowls of cereal ( trials in ones life) are the same!
One may have more mallows than stars or vice versa.
Some one elses trial is always going to look seemingly easier or better but
God knows what is best for you as an individual. A trying time for me that
Is just really hard may not be what is hard for Jesse( I am using my bf as example) nor what he needs.
As people we are diverse there are no two exact same people on earth nor will there ever be!
That is why there are different trials and varying degrees of trials.
We would not want it all to be the same cause what works with one child does not work with all.
Growing up I was a very naughty child while Krista was a very good child ( when compared to me) we were as different as night and day.
So as you can imagine the punishment and correction for us varied greatly.
For Krista all it would take is for you to look
At her in a stern way or say something stern to get her to stop being disobedient.
I was a much more trying of a child and it took some real force to get me
To obey.
Now by this story I am not meaning that trials are punishment for sin that is not
My point . MY point however is that just like one way of correction worked for Krista but not for me so one trial may work for you but not for another.
Take Job and Joseph again. What did their trials bring about?
For Joseph it was forgiveness and God saved many lives through him.
if he wer To have lost his whole family I do not think that the same result could have ever come about ( cause he would not ever have needed to forgive his brothers
If they were taken like Jobs family) Also Job's trial brought about patience and
Endurance and strengthened his relationship to God.
Joseph’s trials probably would not have worked the same way for Job and vice versa.
The point I want to make is that you must as James said count it a joy when you fall into trials! And you must not get jealous of others seemingly
Easier lives! Cause we are all given different bowls of “ lucky charms”
The bowl you have is the one you need! Be happy with it and handle it
In the correct manner.
Don’t wish to skip the “ Green Beans” and just eat the honey and bread and meat! Be happy that God has given you the green beans James 1:4 “ knowing this that the testing of your faith produces patience and let patience have its
Perfect work and you will be perfect and complete lacking nothing”.
At the end of your trial if you have handled it correctly you will be more
Like Christ than ever before and you will be drawn closer to your father in heaven!
If you have any questions about this paper ( or any questions in general) feel free to ask! I enjoy you guys as a youth group and if any of you are going through a hard time right now just remember that it is for you good
And that I am praying for you all!
Extra verses: Psalms 138:8
" The Lord will perfect all that concerns me, thy mercy o lord endures forever forsake not the works of thy hands."
Trials are things that concern us and here in psalms it states that
God will perfect it complete the work He began.
He won't leave ya hangin!
Psalm:139:1-6
VS. 1-" O lord thou has serached me and known me."
VS. 2- " Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising thou understands my thought afar off."
VS. 3-" Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art aquainted with all my ways."
VS.4- " For there is not a word in my tongue but you o lord knowest it
altogether."
VS.5- "Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me."
Vs.6- " Such knowledge is too wonderful for me it is high i cannot attain it."
God knows us better than we know ourselves Vs. 2-4
He has a plan for EVERY part of our lives ( PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE)
Vs. 5 so obviously he would know exactly what we need ( even when it comes to trials) exactly when we need it!
And this great knowledge that He has is like the psalmist here describes it too wonderful and too unfathomable vs. 6! He cares for you better than you care for your self! He knows what He is doing when He gives a trial to you!! So count it a JOY!! PRAISE God for it, and the fact that it is just what you need ( even though at the moment it does not seem that way!)
Hebrews 12:11
" All trials for the moment seems not to be Joyful but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."
I posted it on our youth group website but thought i would share it
with those of you who are not members of it!
Okay I was going to share some of this in class but
There was not enough time so I decided I would put it all here on facebook!
I just love the question Jonathan asked his mom ( and shared with us in class) "Why when we are going through trials does'nt God just pull us out and then when it is all over bring us back into the world?”
While this would be totally “sweet” in most every humans mind
There are some definite problems to this kind of want.
I like to think of good and bad times as a bowl of lucky charms cereal ( one of my favs. By the way). The “ good times will be represented by the “Marshmallows” the bad of course by the “ Oat stars”.
I do not know about you but I would LOVE to have a bowl with just the “Marshmallows” in it!
That would just be so good and sweet and I am sure all of you can agree.
I can remember as a child picking out just the mallows and eating them instead of the oat stars ( okay I will admit I still do that sometimes today.)
But I was forgetting that the oats are good for you. Yeah the mallows taste good
And are tons more enjoyable than the stars but if I ate just the mallows I would
Prolly get high cholesterol and be totally loaded up on just sugar and would suffer some malnutrition problems and things like that, and sometimes I think we as humans are the same.
We would rather have a life full of goodness. No bad times…. No crying.. No fustration... no pain...
Never not knowing what to do in certain situations just a life of pure goodness and no struggles ( does'nt that just sound great??).
And while that would seem good in the long run it is actually very bad.
Look here what James says about “ bad times” in James 1:2-4
“ My brothers count it all a JOY when you fall into various trials and temptations
knowing this that the testing of your faith produces patience.. and let patience have its perfect work and you will be perfect and complete lacking nothing.”
Sometimes we as Christians forget that bad times are actually for our better!
And for our own good Romans 8:28-29.
It is good that we have a mix of both mallows and stars in our bowl.
Another illustration is of a child who is at the dinner table. The meal is meat and green beans and bread with honey. Now the child of coarse eats the meat and bread with honey very well and gobbles them right up.
But the green beans he is a lot less ample to eat, and it takes some coaxing from the parents and he grudgingly eats them once he realizes that he won’t get to leave the table without. Now what he does not know ( at least while he is eating the green beans and probably won’t learn till much later) is that the green beans were actually good for him! Even better than the meat and bread with honey. Sometimes I think we are also like this child. We are going through life all gun hoe just happy go lucky
( eating our meat and bread with honey) and then God throws a bump in the road ( gives us some grean beans) . We begin to complain and throw fits sometimes but what we do not realize is that God is like that childs parents were! God can see that the “ Green beans” ( bad times) are going to benefit us later down the road.
Lets not forget that trials are good for us! We need not skip out on one whole coarse of our meal and just eat the good stuff! ( like Jonathan and many of us wish too) We need a combination of good and bad. But a problem is
Sometimes we look at other people and they seemingly have “ Easier trials”
Than we do and this causes jealousy to build up within us.
But we are forgetting the ending of that verse in James 1:2
“ Count it a joy when you fall into VARIOUS.”
There are many diverse trials. Take a look at two bible characters who went
Through two separate very different trials.
Job is the first and he as we know lost everything ( his sons daughters, livestock, and even his good health)!
Joseph is the second who got taken away from his family and then later was
Thrown into prison for something he did not even do.
Now Job's from a human standpoint is worse than Joseph's trial comparably speacking! I do not know about you but I would much rather be thrown into prison and taken away from my family rather than losing my family altogether.
But we are forgetting that not all bowls of cereal ( trials in ones life) are the same!
One may have more mallows than stars or vice versa.
Some one elses trial is always going to look seemingly easier or better but
God knows what is best for you as an individual. A trying time for me that
Is just really hard may not be what is hard for Jesse( I am using my bf as example) nor what he needs.
As people we are diverse there are no two exact same people on earth nor will there ever be!
That is why there are different trials and varying degrees of trials.
We would not want it all to be the same cause what works with one child does not work with all.
Growing up I was a very naughty child while Krista was a very good child ( when compared to me) we were as different as night and day.
So as you can imagine the punishment and correction for us varied greatly.
For Krista all it would take is for you to look
At her in a stern way or say something stern to get her to stop being disobedient.
I was a much more trying of a child and it took some real force to get me
To obey.
Now by this story I am not meaning that trials are punishment for sin that is not
My point . MY point however is that just like one way of correction worked for Krista but not for me so one trial may work for you but not for another.
Take Job and Joseph again. What did their trials bring about?
For Joseph it was forgiveness and God saved many lives through him.
if he wer To have lost his whole family I do not think that the same result could have ever come about ( cause he would not ever have needed to forgive his brothers
If they were taken like Jobs family) Also Job's trial brought about patience and
Endurance and strengthened his relationship to God.
Joseph’s trials probably would not have worked the same way for Job and vice versa.
The point I want to make is that you must as James said count it a joy when you fall into trials! And you must not get jealous of others seemingly
Easier lives! Cause we are all given different bowls of “ lucky charms”
The bowl you have is the one you need! Be happy with it and handle it
In the correct manner.
Don’t wish to skip the “ Green Beans” and just eat the honey and bread and meat! Be happy that God has given you the green beans James 1:4 “ knowing this that the testing of your faith produces patience and let patience have its
Perfect work and you will be perfect and complete lacking nothing”.
At the end of your trial if you have handled it correctly you will be more
Like Christ than ever before and you will be drawn closer to your father in heaven!
If you have any questions about this paper ( or any questions in general) feel free to ask! I enjoy you guys as a youth group and if any of you are going through a hard time right now just remember that it is for you good
And that I am praying for you all!
Extra verses: Psalms 138:8
" The Lord will perfect all that concerns me, thy mercy o lord endures forever forsake not the works of thy hands."
Trials are things that concern us and here in psalms it states that
God will perfect it complete the work He began.
He won't leave ya hangin!
Psalm:139:1-6
VS. 1-" O lord thou has serached me and known me."
VS. 2- " Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising thou understands my thought afar off."
VS. 3-" Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art aquainted with all my ways."
VS.4- " For there is not a word in my tongue but you o lord knowest it
altogether."
VS.5- "Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me."
Vs.6- " Such knowledge is too wonderful for me it is high i cannot attain it."
God knows us better than we know ourselves Vs. 2-4
He has a plan for EVERY part of our lives ( PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE)
Vs. 5 so obviously he would know exactly what we need ( even when it comes to trials) exactly when we need it!
And this great knowledge that He has is like the psalmist here describes it too wonderful and too unfathomable vs. 6! He cares for you better than you care for your self! He knows what He is doing when He gives a trial to you!! So count it a JOY!! PRAISE God for it, and the fact that it is just what you need ( even though at the moment it does not seem that way!)
Hebrews 12:11
" All trials for the moment seems not to be Joyful but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."
I remember you writing this! :0) Keep following the Lord and stand bold in the Faith. <3
ReplyDeleteThankyou Esther! I am striving to follow God. I want to thank you for your example to me! I have seen your devotion to God, and your love for others, and I want to follow after you! I miss you alot!
ReplyDelete