As a pastor, I have personally experienced and learned from others who have faced and grown through their faith struggles, whether they involve addictions, illnesses, losses, or tragedies. They all, at some point, realized how God used their challenges and perseverance to draw them closer to Him and prepare them for their kingdom work.

Saint James expresses it this way: "When your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."

Faithful endurance fosters spiritual growth! Friends, pain is often the price of growth! The old saying is true: There is no gain without pain! We all want quick solutions and easy fixes. We want a pill, a seminar, or a self-help book that brings change without pain. That usually doesn't happen!

The great theologian J. I. Packer said, "God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives." The thing you're struggling with is often the thing God uses to develop you. There is often new growth in the most painful parts of life. That painful process makes you more like Christ.

If you will learn to trust God in your pain, He will use it to develop endurance in you through His presence, provision, and abiding peace.

Onward and Upward + Fr. Greg