Reb Rev's Blog

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” – James 1:2-3

I got a lot of comments and feedback on last week’s “Thought” on the need to be patient. Most of them had to do with the question, “how do we improve in that area?” So, I thought this week, we’d look at how the Bible says we attain the trait. But, first, a story…

There was once a young man who lived on a ranch. He got the idea one day that he wanted to grow to be the strongest man alive. He thought and thought about how to accomplish that feat, and finally came up with an idea.

One of the cows on the ranch had just had a young male calf. He went out the next day and picked the calf up, and walked around with it a bit. The next day he did the same thing. Then the next, and so on. Each day the calf grew ever so slightly, and each day the young man grew stronger, ever so slightly.

The days, weeks and months went by and as the calf grew into a bull, the young man was still able to pick him up and walk around, becoming the strongest man alive.

The Bible verse above tells us our faith grows – therefore our patience grows, just as our muscles grow, through being challenged and enduring testing.

We learn to be patient by learning to trust God. When we go through “small trials,” we often don’t even look to Him, or for Him. But, in every trial we should watch for His work. When we see how trustworthy and capable God is, our faith will grow. As our faith grows, we will grow stronger in patience – knowing there is nothing we face God cannot handle.

As my friend Steve Brown says, “God hasn’t failed anyone yet, and is He isn’t going to start with you.”

This entry was posted on February 12, 2011 at 11:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.