Life does often throw up some difficult situations and we can find ourselves struggling in the storms of life. We never know what will happen to us on any given day. Our storms can be personal, loss of health, loss of friends and family, loss of job. There are times when these problems don’t come singly. Some storms might be slightly less personal, but still devastating, trouble in the neighbourhood, difficulties in the church or wars and threats of war.
Trouble is never welcome, we don’t want it, but it will come. Reading in the Bible it was sometimes thought that sickness was the result of sin, as in the healing of the blind man ‘Who sinned this man or his parents? John 9:1. Fortunately Jesus explained that it was not punishment. Trials can be a time of spiritual growth, a period of preparation. Down through the ages men and women have attested to the fact that in the ‘down times’ they have been closer to God; they have been upheld in a supernatural way. Our spiritual growth is in times of difficulties.
Joseph probably learned more in the pit and prison than he did in the palace. It was a time of preparation for the important periods he had ahead. While things were going well he could boast in his dreams and multi-coloured coat. With these privileges came arrogance; when the chips were down he came face to face with God and had his times of spiritual growth. It can be the same for us.