When It Isn’t a Wonderful Life – Learning From Adversity – Purity 1844
Purity 1844 12/19/2025 Purity 1844 Audio Podcast
Purity 1844 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a park bench in the foreground of a magnificent view of the sun setting on the horizon over Murat Bay from the vantage point of the Ceduna Jetty in South Australia comes to us from Dave Baun Photography who shared this beautiful scene on social media back on July 20th 2022.
Well, It’s Friday, thank God, and while I am rejoicing because this is the last Friday that I have to work before Christmas and my post Christmas Cruise to the Carribean with David Jeremiah Ministries, the enemy is doing his best to rain on my parade as anxious thoughts of what will happen after my vacation is over want to have center stage.
Although I have much to look forward to and to be thankful for this Christmas, the truth is that I am currently in a major crisis point in my life because I lost my job in November and even though I have found a way to support myself for right now, I am not sure if I will have a job when I come back from vacation. I’m a seasonal delivery driver and come January 5th, I think “the season” is over and I will have to find another way to make a way.
So this lately I have been inundated with anxious, fearful, and condemning thoughts that simultaneously want to drive me into worry, condemnation, and despair. A real demonic committee of doom wants to oppress my thoughts and destroy my peace but thankfully I have been educated of the devil’s schemes and well trained in the art of spiritual warfare. The battlefield is the mind and when the circumstances around you aren’t great, the enemy wants to declare: “IT”S NOT A WONDERFUL LIFE!!!” and come to upset your emotions, compromise your judgement, and draw you into sin.
But I say: “Not Today Satan!” because even though I have no sense of certainty about my short or long term future at this point, I am certain that God is still in control and will move all things together for good.
Even though I have reasons to be worried and reasons to condemn myself, I’m not going there in my mind because I am trusting that God will lead me where He wants me to go and even if the way there may be filled with uncertainty, pain, and suffering, I’m still counting on God because He is the only One I can count on.
God got the whole world in His hands and since I put my faith in Jesus Christ, He’s got me too. So, no matter what I face in life, I am going to trust in Him to save me, in more ways then one.
Just like Job said in Job 13:15: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” But unlike Job who God called “blameless and upright”, I will not defend my ways. The truth is I am responsible for the predicament that I am, so I will be silent when it comes to defending myself and just pray for God’s mercy and grace to help me and wait on the Lord to show me the way and deliver me.
Going through suffering or times of adversity, regardless of our culpability, isn’t easy but when you know the Lord, you can be sure that He will use them for good, somehow.
Speaking of God and times of adversity, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley from today teaches on this topic, so I am sharing it on the blog today to help us to understand more about life and how God works. Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“Learning From Adversity
In every moment of pain, the Lord provides the grace we need in order to endure.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
What should we do with our pain when God doesn’t remove it? How can He be a God of love and yet not come to our aid?
Today’s passage gives us insight into a painful event in Paul’s life. We don’t know what the “thorn in the flesh” was, but his account of what he learned through that experience is an amazing example of three things God teaches us through adversity:
- God is sovereign over the situation.Ultimately, He is the one who allowed the difficulty and the one with the power to end it.
- God prioritizes the spiritual. Paul wanted physical relief, but the Lord was working for his spiritual good. Whatever God allows to afflict believers is designed to protect them from sin, produce holiness, and equip them for faithful service.
- God’s grace is sufficient. The Lord gave Paul both the grace to endure and strength in his weakness.
Once we understand the Lord’s sovereignty, priorities, and sufficiency, we can respond to our afflictions as Paul did—with gladness (James 1:2-3).
When Christ’s strength is perfected in us, we can be content in whatever difficulties God allows in our life. The Lord’s unwillingness to give us relief is not neglect. Rather, it is evidence of His surpassing love, which seeks our eternal good. – Charles Stanley
Amen. Wow! This may be a hard pill to swallow but Stanley’s teaching invites us to have a true understanding of who God is and how are lives aren’t just a collection of random happenstances without meaning or purpose.
In order to experience the peace that goes beyond understanding, we need to have an enlightened understanding that knows that no matter what unfortunate circumstances we face, God is sovereign over it and is using it for a purpose that is for our good.
God knows about the situations we face and the pain we are in and He does care about us.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that His plan is to always miraculously intervene to remove us from the painful situations we are in.
Instead, He invites us to find our comfort in Him and to trust Him to help us, in His way, for His greater purpose.
The trials we face teach us something we wouldn’t learn otherwise – patience, trust, endurance, surrender- and so we have to understand that God hasn’t abandoned us and will use the difficulties of our lives to help us to be more like Jesus, to become the people that God made us to be.
So, when you face various trials, remember that God is still in control, will use our troubles to make us more holy, and will give us what we need to endure.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Prayer – Waiting On the Lord.
James 5:17–18 (NIV) Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
Today’s verses fall under the twelfth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Prayer.
12. Dare to pray for great things, as did Elijah.
Today’s Bible verses encourage us to be bold in our prayers.
God answered Elijah’s prayers, so we should not be shy when it comes to what we pray for. God is the one who does miracles and we have to believe that He is still doing miracles and that He very well may perform one for us, if we ask.
If we don’t ask, we don’t receive. So trust the Lord with the things you need help with, ask Him to help you in prayer.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 343
Jesus … said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” – Acts 20:35
Paul preserved this precious saying of the Lord, and we are all the richer for it. It is true that receiving is fine—there is nothing wrong with it. But to see one in need and then to see his appreciation when you have supplied what he needs is to bring joy to your own soul. Though this is true, it ought not to be the prime motive for giving to others. Fundamentally, we should give to please God. The blessing comes as a by-product. Genuine blessing comes from God. He sees, and He rewards with the joy that comes from giving, and also with more for you, both to enjoy and to give, in days ahead. How blessed are you from giving? How much do you lack? If you have not thought much about this before, why not try giving where you see need, and see what blessings, in God’s time, come your way? Take God at His word![1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 351–352.
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