3 lessons that you can learn from suffering
What hard times can teach us
Have you ever heard the saying "Laughter is the best medicine." Let's see...
An uneducated man from up in the hills was visiting the big city and checked into a nice hotel. At the counter, he signed his name with an X and started to walk away.
Then he stopped, turned and put a circle around the X.
“Now, I’ve seen lots of people from the mountains sign with an X,” the receptionist said. “But I’ve never seen one with a circle around it. Why’d you do that?”
“Well, you know how it is,” the man replied. “When you’re in a strange place, sometimes you don’t want to use your real name.”
<pause for laughter>
It's gotta be true - a laugh is medicinal! Laughter feels good. It helps us to focus outside of ourselves. But I’m also convinced that it’s not really the right medicine for some of the trouble that comes our way – particularly as Christians.
If you turn to Psalm 38 in the Bible, David is having a hard time. But in the midst of his suffering and his very real, very gripping pain, he finds something else.
He finds a message that he desperately needed to hear - an understanding that could carry him through the suffering; The right medicine for his pain.
David found three things that could take him through the darkness he felt so consumed by:
1. The Need to be Honest Before God
2. The Need to see your own heart... as it truly is.
3. The Need to turn back to God - and confess.
C.S. Lewis said that although we don’t like it, God uses pain like a megaphone. He needs to use that, so that we can address what is wrong – and bring it to Him to make us right again. As David says in the Psalm:
"LORD, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior."
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