Read | Romans 8:16-18
When difficulties arise, how can you be sure you’re responding in a way that would please the Lord? Here is an acrostic, based on the word adversity, that suggests the steps you should take:
Accept the events of your life as part of how God equips you.
Decide to follow Jesus’ ways of responding to trials.
Veer to neither the right nor left from the path of obedience.
Expect the Holy Spirit to help you grow through your difficulties.
Remember how the Lord has helped you in the past.
Set your face like flint (Isa. 50:7) to endure the trial without wavering.
Invest additional time in your relationship with God.
Trust the Lord, especially when you do not understand.
Yearn to be made ready for the return of our Savior.
Adversity will either harden or soften us. Some people become hardhearted and resist God in times of adversity, but those who know how to respond are softened by troubles and broken. But when it is of the Lord, brokenness is a positive thing that prepares, equips, energizes, and empowers us as children of the King. We will come to know the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings and proclaim with Paul, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17 NIV).
Let us take as our position the words of James 1:2-4, which says to “consider it all joy” when we encounter trials, because such testing of our faith produces endurance and perfects us.
