Trusting God even when life hurts:

Trusting God Even when life hurts By Jerry Bridges 

 has for about 10 years been one of my most favourite of books.... it is one of those essential must reads for every Christian! One of the books I always try to give or at teh very least lend to my best friends.

Today we listened to Pastor Troy Cane's 2nd sermon in an excellent series on 'Becoming more Like Jesus',(click in Becoming like Jesus and scroll down to find the series)

Here is the actual sermon link

2 The Purpose of God (Romans 8)

~ 47min

~ 5.6Mb

09-Jan-2011

If you want to understand mankind's purpose to existing here on earth then this is a must 'listen to sermon' of a 'must listen to' series!

Pastor Cane quotes from Jerry Bridges , near the end of his sermon, when talking about going through trials:

 Growing through Adversity, the Cecropia Moth

(By Berksquat at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons)

One of the many fascinating events in nature is the emergence of the Cecropia moth from its cocoon -- an event that occurs only with much struggle on the part of the moth to free itself. The story is frequently told of someone who watched a moth go through this struggle. In an effort to help -- and not realizing the necessity of the struggle -- the viewer snipped the shell of the cocoon.

(By Megan McCarty (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Soon the moth came out with its wings all crimped and shriveled. But as the person watched, the wings remained weak. The moth, which in a few moments would have stretched those wings to fly, was now doomed to crawling out its brief life in frustration of ever being the beautiful creature God created it to be.

What the person in the story did not realize was that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon was an essential part of developing the muscle system of the moth's body and pushing the body fluids out into the wings to expand them. By unwisely seeking to cut short the moth's struggle, the watcher had actually crippled the moth and doomed its existence.

The adversities of life are much like the cocoon of the Cecropia moth. God uses them to develop the spiritual "muscle system" of our lives (see James 1:2-4).

(By Marvin Smith [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)