To Help Us Grow

The testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

James 1:3–4

In order to use us, God sets in motion a plan for shaping us into the kind of people He wants us to be. Sometimes that means we experience awful pain, giving up what we want to keep and going forward into areas we’d rather leave unexplored. But if we are going to be used by the Lord for His purposes, that process has to take place. That’s exactly what happened to Joseph. As a favored young man, beloved and chosen by his father as his heir, Joseph was unexpectedly dropped into a pit. Before he knew what was happening, he was a family slave in a foreign country, serving under a hard man. If ever a man had reason to be bitter, it was Joseph.

But the wonderful thing is that Joseph did not become bitter. He was able to dream, to recognize the fact that God was shaping him for ministry—using the tough times of his life to prepare him for something great. All of us go through trying times, and they don’t happen by accident. God arranges those times to help us grow.