Adversity

There are some things that you can know about adversity:

1. You can expect it! No matter who you are, or what you are doing in life, sooner or later, we all will face challenges, hardships and adversities. In Job 5:7 it says, “Man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward."

2. You can learn from it! Sometimes it is the mistakes we make, or the messes we survive that teach us lessons that a smooth life will never teach us.

3. There is opportunity in adversity! Even though it’s hard to know where to look, good can come out of any experience in your life. There is no waste in God's economy. He has promised to bring good out of even the worst of our experiences! Rom 8:28 says, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

Here's a great story about how God uses adversity in our lives:

Some time ago, a few ladies met in a certain city to read the scriptures, and make them the subject of conversation. While reading the third chapter of Malachi they came upon a remarkable expression in the third verse: "And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Malachi 3:3 says, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.“

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study group, and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and he let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were the hottest, so as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot, and then she thought again about the verse that says "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that, yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and said, "Oh, that's easy ­ when I see my image in it.“

2 Corinthians 4:8 “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”