“I was really having a hard time after my car accident finding something to rejoice about,” my friend said. (I knew the feeling.)
But my friend went on.
“I got down on my knees and asked God to help me. After that, I sat down and, as I thought of people who had come to help me after the accident, I soon had a list of eighteen things for which to be thankful.”
“I didn’t feel like rejoicing as I sat in church,” the daughter of another friend confessed. “My husband had left us and I had lots of expenses. Then I looked across the aisle and saw our evangelism pastor’s young married daughter with a turban on her head. I knew she was having radiation after her brain tumor operation and I thought, all your children are well. I was ashamed that I’d felt I had nothing to rejoice about.”
Sometimes it is difficult, almost impossible, to rejoice when trials fill our days. God did not say our days on earth would be trouble free. I guess some would say trials are as certain as death and taxes. I’ve also heard that, if everyone were to put their troubles into one huge basket and then choose one, people would take their own back. That could be true. Usually we can look around and see others with greater trials than our own. God knows how much we can bear.
We have a Savior who suffered for all in order to take the penalty for sin, which was death. We can rejoice in this always. He is also our burden bearer. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
We can rejoice in the Lord, and He will guide us through our trials.
Copyright 2000 June Titus -- All Rights Reserved
This article is excerpted from Still Living, Still Learning by June Titus. Click here to purchase book at CBD.