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Posts Tagged ‘hardship’

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.” Hebrews 12:7

This is another difficult Bible verse about humility.  How quick we often are to run from hardship and pray to God to deliver us from it.  It takes a lot of humility to go through hardship and be thankful to God that He is disciplining us for our own good like any good father does with his child.  Having this kind of mentality requires a completely different shift in how we view God.  Most of us view God as a counselor, a supporter, a giver of good gifts, and God is definitely all of those things.  What we don’t often consider is that God is more interested in our character than in our happiness.  God wants to bless us with good things, there is no doubt of that.  But God is more interested in blessing us with character than He is with material things.   God is more interested that we become wise, content, humble, and loving than He is that we become financially free and independent.

But so often in our prayers we neglect those things.  Just ask yourself, when was the last time you prayed that God would make you more humble, or more loving, or that he would increase your faith?  Conversely, when was the last time you asked Him to give you something materially or financially?  And because we don’t often ask God for things relating to the betterment of our character, and we don’t often surrender to Him those areas of our lives, He has to discipline us against our wishes so that our character is refined.  It’s a much easier path to ask God to better your character and then surrender to Him the results.  In the Old Testament, God warned Israel:

“Don’t be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle.” Psalms 32:9

I definitely don’t want to be like that.  I would rather be the kind of man who realizes that his character needs a lot of work and who asks God in prayer to better his character and help him become a better man.  That way, hopefully I won’t have to wonder and be angry if God decides to discipline me for my own good.  I’ll be ready for it and asking God for the grace to help me change.