Hello Rhys,
I can't say I'm too thankful for the trials that come my way. At least not right away. Like you and Greg and many others I'm sure, in retrospect I can see where trials and troubles where a good thing that turned me around and back on course or kept me out of continued trouble. Other trials or tribulations...... I still have no clue as to the benefit of them. Not yet anyway.
I wonder to myself if this cannot be some sort of guidepost. The quicker I can give thanks in times of trial, great and small, the closer I am ......maybe that's not how I should look at it. I don't know.
More recently, when big trials happen, I don't complain, I ask God, (admittedly, sometimes with a *sigh*), "Now what?". Not quite thanking and rejoicing, but I think I'm headed the right way. Of course the answer to , 'Now What?", may take some time to come. Hard to continually be thankful when it looks like your world is collapsing around you. At least we know who to run to at that point........(Full circle?).
1 Thessalonians 5:18
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
If it's His will for us to 'give thanks in all things', then it will happen, eventually.
Anyway, I do understand Rays thoughts on this. If persecution, trials and tribulations will help, "qualify us for His kingdom", then, 'bring them on so I can qualify quicker'. I suppose it would be easier to do that if we could see ourselves in the process of qualifying , right then and there. Being a builder of things, the building process can get quite messy and disorganized and though not complete, I know what the end result will be and can deal with the temporary mess. I can't say I have that in the spiritual sense. Perhaps the more spiritual we become, the more we can see the end result and the easier it will be to deal with our temporary mess?....not to mention the, 'this is going to be great when finished', hope for the future.
Ramble, ramble, ramble. Not much help other than to say, you've got company on this trip.
Extol,
I'm sort of in the same boat as you, the worry and the fear when life seems, ok. Not a good place to be.
Though I may not be well off, I'm more well off than a lot of folks out there so there is the, 'success guilt', hanging over me. 'Why am I ok while others are miserable?'. 'Does my getting by ok now mean that my rewards are now and not in the future?" Drives me crazy sometimes.
In one of Rays papers he talks about the 7 falls that we each need to go through, or something like that. I've only had 3 or 4 which means I'm looking at 3 or 4 more...? Ugg. Hard to be thinking worry and fear free when there may be more big trials on the way. (I may have misinterpreted what Ray was saying but I'm pretty sure that was the gist of it). I'm going to to go find that again and read it a few more times to see what he meant. Perhaps it was spiritual falls, perhaps carnal, not that knowing which will make it any easier. I'm not sure now.
John 14:27
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
So there we go. Sounds simple right?
It's all a process, and it can take time.
Michael
By the way, I don't surf, but dig surf music.
Couple of classics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJmI6fAPUSkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqC3BjIyq_0