“A fellow from the cannery came running down to the wharf shouting that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor,” Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston wrote. “Mama yelled at him, ‘What is Pearl Harbor?’”
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
In C.S. Lewis’s brilliant book The Screwtape Letters, senior devil Screwtape writes to his nephew, advising him on how to handle his patient who has just become a Christian (all references to The Enemy are to God since these are, after all, a pair of devils writing to one another).
Some think that believers should always be upbeat, always sure of where they are going, always self-fulfilled and satisfied, but many times our smiles camouflage pain, confusion and sorrow. All true men and women of God have experienced such things. If you feel spiritually, physically and emotionally bankrupt, knowing that without a supernatural infusion of Christ’s strength you simply cannot go on, you are not alone. But be assured that there is complete victory for you!
Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
