Day 18: Saturday February 23, 2008

Daily Reading: James 1:2-8

Endurance is a word I don't like very much. Bearing pain, continuing through adversity, pressing on in spite of hardship... Not the most comfortable of thoughts.

In spite of the difficulty that is associated with the word, endurance does amazing things in our lives. As our endurance grows we become mature or literally 'complete' in our relationship with God.

Does that seem strange, that we must suffer to grow? Is it odd that God requires us to be tested to be purified? Does God care that much about our character that he would push us out of complacency and comfort? Is this the attitude of a loving Heavenly Father?

Absolutely.

My daughter recently has had some struggles with learning her multiplication tables. She has no motivation, and all attempts to inspire her have fallen on deaf ears. Dad had to take action.

We came up with a system where every day, right after school she would sit in a room by herself and she could not do anything else until she finished 3 iterations of her times tables. The first few days of this torture were terrible on everyone in the house as you can imagine. As time has progressed, she has learned not only to do them quickly, but to do the things she hates (7's 8's and 9's) before anything else. In a matter of only a couple weeks she has progressed greatly, and soon she will not have to do them anymore because she will have learned the lesson. As she has grown, she has realized that now she has more time with me, and to do the things she wants to do because she has resolved to learn the lesson as quickly as possible.

Is it really any different for us? God wants us to learn love, joy, patience, goodness, self-control, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness... and there are times when we are resistant that He must use trials to mold us.

The problem with resistance is we really aren't learning the lesson, which for us, means we have to endure the trial longer. Wouldn't it just be easier if we accepted the lesson and learned it as quickly as possible?

May you have courage to endure your trials and connect more with your Father.
-davey