Oh No! Not Another Learning Experience

Just because God can work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies does not mean He orchestrated the tragedy. I often pray to be delivered from my afflictions, and even trust God that it will be so. But I usually forget to ask Him to make me what I should be while undergoing the experience. Nor do I pray that I would be able to live within the affliction for however long it lasts. Often I can not feel that I am being held and sheltered by the Lord and can therefore continue within the pain without suffering any harm.

The Savior endured an especially difficult test in the wilderness while in the presence of Satan, for forty days and nights, His human nature weakened by lack of food and water. The three young Hebrew men were kept for a time in the flames of "the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual." (Dan 3:19) In spite of being forced to endure the tyrants' last method of torture, they remained calm and composed as they waited for deliverance. And after surviving an entire night sitting among the lions, "when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God." (Dan 6:23)

But this is too often not my response. I just want it over, brought to a close as soon as possible. In spite of my earlier writings about bearing up under trials, I still regularly lose patience, and almost never ask Him to use the experience to change me. It is as if I think I don't need to change during the process, just to demonstrate my faith, and endure.

Only God does not need change. I certainly need change. It helps me to know that God loves me just as I am, but He loves me too much to leave me this way. The hurts that I still cling to from the past color my present and discolor relationships. I need to forgive much as I have been forgiven much.