Isn’t it great that God always wants to build us up, to give us the strength and confidence to walk through painful situations with him and allow him to transform our unnecessary hurt, anger or bitterness into something beautiful.

When we ask for more – or to move further on in service, (which I do most days), we shouldn’t be surprised when find ourselves in situations where our patience, our grace or our forgiveness is tested. When walking through these times it often hurts and feels heavy but it is during these times that our faith and our character deepens and develops. Long ago I used to go to a gym, believe it or not, and there was a pain threshold that you had to push through in order to build muscle. The same is said of faith. God will use life’s ups and downs to build up those faith muscles but it takes time, so we shouldn’t be impatient, trusting in his timing which is always perfect and I can assure you that those doors will fly open when we are ready to walk through them.

If we don’t see immediate results then we need to trust that we just are not strong enough, we don’t have the strength or grace to handle the situation yet – but when we are and when God is confident that we are, we will walk into glory, every painful situation we face is a way of strengthening our muscles of faith and developing our characters.

I know it’s hard, but embracing the difficult times and the painful situations can be a blessing if we trust in the power of God and the love that he has for each one of us. Prayer brings hope into the darkest situations, it brings us out of the messiness of life and it always brings transformation. Amen