Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– Robert Leighton
Friends Tell the Truth
If adversity was your friend, he or she would tell you the truth, even if it hurts. Solomon wrote “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov 27:6) and contrary to the way the world thinks, “Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts” (Prov 20:30). Your friends should love you enough to tell you the truth which is why this is true; “Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue” (Prov 28:23).
Adversity and Character
No character can really be formed during the times when everything goes well. It’s easy to praise God during the good times but how hard it is to praise God in the storms of life! In the same way, if things were not hard, full of pressure and heat, no precious minerals or gems would form under the earth such as diamond or gold. It is under great pressure, stresses, heat, and adversity that diamonds and gold are formed…and so in the same way, God is shaping us, forming us, and molding us after the image of His own Son by the use of adversity, so if we look at it this way, adversity is really our friend.
Swimming Upstream
Most of the world doesn’t realize that they’re dead to sin and are dead men walking and dead women walking. We too “were dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1) “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5). Christians are swimming against the current of the world, the flesh and the Devil but any old dead fish can float downstream. It is only those who have been made alive that are enabled to swim upstream and only because God enables them too.
Conclusion
Robert Leighton knew what he was talking about when he said “Adversity is the diamond dust heaven polishes its jewels with” and so I hope you can look at adversity differently know and look at it as a friend who is building character in us under pressure, but God will help us go against the current of the world because He has made us alive through Christ.
