The Gift of Misery

We have few days left before Christmas. Traditionally, during this season people excited to give and receive gifts. It's lovely to give someone a gift. It's fun. It's exciting to receive a gift, too, particularly if it's something that you really wanted and you get it by surprise. It thrills you to get a gift like that. It's wonderful to get a gift from God as well. How many of us have had a gift from Him? All of us. Our salvation, God's Son, His Spirit, our family, our brethren, our BS contacts, our friends, if have them -all are gifts from Him.

There is a gift from God, though, that we don't recognize as gift. I have a book titled The Rest of the Gospel by Dan Stone and Greg Smith, this book was given to me from my mentor his name is Ching Alkuino, he is a real man of God. The content of the book has a powerful message of the gospel. One of the chapter of the book wrote by the author a gift that we never recognize as a gift from God. The author call it the gift of misery. I don't know if you see misery as a gift, but it is. Most of us who have been drawn to God, either initially or in deeper way lateron, have been drawn through misery. It was pain, heartache, disappointament, or discouragement that did it.

Personally, I've been through misery that leads me to draw near to Christ. We also went through misery for how many students and faculties in MSU experienced kidnapping and the latest one of the faculty was murdered together with his student assistant. What a miserable situations we have. It's really hard to comprehend. We begin to feel like running away.

But God is in control. God was right in the middle of that. He used that situations to draw all the more to Christ. In Him we assured and secured. He is mighty to save. Even as a body of Christ He allow this things to happen so that we realized that we need to be united and joined together as one in prayer. He restored the relationship among the leaders. He reconciled the broken relationships.

We also see in the Sriptures God's primary way of preparing people for Him was the gift of misery. One of the best example was the life of Joseph. He was tossed into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, put into prison, unjustly forgotten and left to languish. Eventually he became Prime Minister of Egypt, but that was a hard route. Humanly speaking, he had the right to be bitter.

When his brothers were at his mercy, however, what was his response?
"You meant evil against me, but God meant it for Good? (Gen.50:20). God meant it for good for those who loved him.  He used misery in Joseph's life not only to mature him in his faith, but also to bring salvation to his father's household. He could see the evil of his brothers or he could see the purpose of God.

Thank God for your misery. It prepares you to be a vessel for His use, for His strength - not yours - to flow through. It doesn't seem to make sense. In weakness is your strenght. In your misery is your hope. In your death is your life. In your nothing is His everything. It's amazing how God works. Out of dung heap grows a rose. Out of misery grows a mighty man of God. Thank God for your misery. Thank God for your pain. Don't attribute it to the devil. If you do, paraphrase Joseph: " The devil meant it for evil, but God turns his trick on him and works it for good."