Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, December 1, 2014

"Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything."¹

Author, James Moore, wrote: "A popular movie some years ago was an entertaining film based on the female major-league baseball teams of the 1940s. In one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, the star catcher of the Rockford Peaches, played by Geena Davis, threatens to quit. She's tired; she's worn out; she's worried about her husband who has gone to war; and in a low moment, she is ready to 'throw in the towel.' This star catcher, by far the best player in the league, complains that the game is just 'too hard.' The manager of the Rockford Peaches, played by Tom Hanks, tries to talk her out of quitting.

"When she said, 'It's too hard,' he replied, 'Well, baseball's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, everybody would do it.' And then he said, 'Hard is what makes it great!' The same thing could be said about the Christian life: 'Hard is what makes it great!'"²

And as another has said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." And as the poet expressed it so well:

    'Tis not the softer things of life
    which stimulate man's will to strive;
    but bleak adversity and strife
    do most to keep man's will alive.
    O'er rose-strewn paths the weaklings creep,
    but brave hearts dare to climb the steep.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for the trials that you have allowed me to go through to help me become a better, healthier, more mature, and more loving person. And thank you for helping me to hang in when I wanted to hang up. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. James 1:2-4 (NLT).
2. James W. Moore, "Some Things Are Too Good Not To Be True," Dimensions (1994), pp. 83-84. (Cited on esermons.com )

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