The NIV 365 Day Devotional

Dealing with Adversity

If we believe a true Christian ought not to experience adversity, then the moment our lives fall apart, so does our faith. We begin to question a fundamental issue: “Am I really a Christian? After all, if I were really following God, then this wouldn’t happen to me.”

Following this line of false thinking, we perceive adversity as God’s punishment for unknown sin. As if God is dropping hints from heaven with every tragedy or that he has deserted us somewhere along the way. How easy it would have been for Joseph to question his belief in God and to assume God was punishing him with every misfortune (see Genesis 37; 39–40). Instead, the Bible records his remarkably opposite attitude of faith.

Similarly, we can look to Jesus as the ultimate example to debunk the idea that bad things do not happen to good people. Isaiah prophesied centuries before that the Messiah would be “despised” and “rejected” and well-acquainted with sorrows (Isaiah 53:3). If Jesus’ life is the Christian ideal, an example in every way, then we must accept Jesus’ suffering as a part of God’s divine impartiality and learn how Jesus handled it. If we were to believe the claims that adversity is unfitting for a believer, then we must discount the examples of Moses, Hannah, Naomi, David, Job, Hosea, Jeremiah, Paul, Mary, John and countless others who experienced great adversity as believers.

The Bible is, above all, realistic in its approach to life. Life sometimes hurts and threatens to crush us beneath its weight. But life in the Spirit is about perseverance and peace in the midst of struggle, not the absence of struggle. To believe otherwise is to join the disillusioned throng who encounter life on its own terms and are unprepared for the blow.

Taken from Flourish: The NIV Bible for Women.