You must learn to endure everything, so that you will be completely mature and not lacking in anything. (James 1:4 CEV)
We can take one of two attitudes toward the ways of God
with us; we can get bitter, sour, hard; or we can have the enlargement by
exercise, development by exercise, to develop capacity, to bring us into the
large place that we may be intelligently His instrument for governing under
His Headship in ages to come. Things that enter into our history we cannot
always fathom, but the explanation which we
can give
is that, whatever there may be as second causes, the Lord is Sovereign and He
thinks it worthwhile sometimes to allow what the world would call the most
terrible thing to overtake for the time being, and it would seem that His Name
and interests suffer through that thing, but through that thing He brings His
people to a place of maturity and they get to know the Lord for themselves.
Through these terrible things we find the Lord produces something that is very
much more worthy of Himself in the life of His children. That is His
justification, His vindication; if He could do it in any other way He would.
In the long run He does get spiritual maturity among His people, where they
know Him. He would get us to a place where we know the Lord and we have our
senses exercised to know. The Lord give us grace to accept all His dealings
with us in the light of His great purpose.