"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also." Romans 5:3
It takes a telescopic faith to be able to say "we glory in tribulations." One must be able to look ahead and visualize the end purposes of trials and tribulations, and rest in the promise of Romans 8:28. Every one of our trials and testings is known to God, is permitted by God, and has a purpose in the development of our Christian character.
Many of you own a camera. They are made so simple today that one needs to know nothing about photography to take good pictures. Just snapping the picture is easy enough, but to develop the film takes a knowledge of photography. A film is a piece of material covered with chemicals which are exceedingly sensitive to light. When the light falls upon this film, there is no visible change, yet the picture is there. It only needs to be developed. It is taken into a darkroom and immersed in a liquid containing certain chemicals which dissolve parts of the coating of the film exposed to the light. The negative is placed in this solution and the dish tilted from side to side, washing and rewashing the face of the plate or film until gradually the image is revealed. This is called "developing the plate." The picture was there all the time but it needed to be developed.
Trials and testings are God's "developers" of Christian character. There are gifts and graces and virtues which are never developed except in the darkroom of God's school of affliction. Some of you today are in God's darkroom, while He passes you through test after test of developing solution, while bringing out a beauty in you, which will be its own explanation and God's answer to the question, "Why must I suffer so?" He wants to bring out in you the image of Him whose likeness you bear.
"Little furnaces are for little faith. The greatest compliment God can pay us is to heat the furnace to the utmost."
"Bread For Each Day"
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