Looking right through by Gary Rose

Both pictures are the same flower; The difference is water. When the flower gets wet, it becomes transparent. In other words, you can see right through it.

Interesting! It occurred to me that human beings are something like this unidentified flower. When we encounter adversity (like the flower and the rain) or problems or perhaps even pain, the real you comes out. I thought about this morning, when something quite unpleasant happened, I found myself saying “come on” and when it repeated, “Come on!” and when it happened still again, “Come on!!!”

Forty years ago, I would have responded with “colorful language”, but today all I could say was “come on”. And, as I reflect upon my life, I can see God working through every difficulty, every obstacle and turning those things into something that changed my life for the better, by changing ME!!!

In the 1^st chapter of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church, I can see Paul thinking the same way. Looking at his life and seeing how God was turning problems into things that eventually worked out for something much better.

2 Corinthians 1 (World English Bible)

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;

4 who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ.

6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.

So the question naturally comes to mind: Are we changing??? Are we thinking about our lives in such a way that we can see past the adversity that comes our way and actually see right through it to the goodness of God working in our lives?

I can and hope you can as well!!!