Bible Bedrock
by Norman Grubb

“Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
–Romans 5:3-4

Daily life is by no means just easy, smooth-running times. It is constantly disturbed by things small or big. Something lost, something gone wrong, responsibilities to fulfill, demanding children, finances, sickness, clashes of personalities, differences of viewpoint, decisions to be made. At these moments, self comes very much alive and we have our human reactions. It is at this spot that we find it hard to grasp that this is precisely God’s purpose that His sons should be involved in disturbing human situations. The positive must have its negative to manifest through, so we must learn to the full what it is to be a negative. It was said of Jesus Himself that though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience through the things which He suffered, and clearly knew that the Son could do nothing of Himself.

We ask a useless question and mistake the meaning of life if we say, “Will there be no letup from continual pressures?” No. If I am to function in my proper place as a son and inheritor of God’s universe in my eternal destiny, I need to learn first how a son functions in adverse circumstances. A swimmer grows strong against the tide, not with it. It is the trial of my faith which works maturity in me, says James. When we see that, we can expect and welcome what the world calls problems and frustrations. If in our future destiny we are to be at ease in letting God through in friendly areas of responsibility, it can only be because we gradually became experienced in letting Him through in the enemy’s territory. So these years in the world against the tide are no mistake. They are not something which need not have been. They have to be. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. We must first learn therefore, and accept with praise as the adventure of adversity, the reality of life’s pressures and our constant negative human reactions to them. By this means only, first finding how earthen our vessels are, shall we then by stages be even quicker, as Jesus so wonderfully was, knowing how to replace our negative with His positive. That way we become at home in the eternal fact that His strength can only be made perfect in our weakness; and find Paul’s secret that “when I am weak, then am I strong.” This is of vast importance because we have got used to thinking that we are wrong when we have these negative reactions. No, they must be.

—Who Am I?