Rabbi Schneider - Difficult Times, Is There a Purpose?
Shalom Aleichem, peace to you Beloved One, I'm going back today to the book of First Thessalonians chapter 5, I began last week, I want to go into part 2 of this today. Listen to what Paul said, "Rejoice always" and it's not just Paul, this is the Word of the Lord. "Rejoice always," I focused on that last week- rejoicing continuously. "Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the Will of God in Christ Jesus for you". I love what I said last week about rejoicing continuously because the Word of the Lord, as I said, spoke to me audibly sometime back and He said to me, "Rejoice continuously and you will ascend every situation".
So right now, I'm repenting, I'm positioning myself to live life in such a way that I'm gonna rejoice continuously through the grace of HaShem. Now notice what Paul also said here, he said, "giving thanks in all circumstances". This means that we thank God not only before we're having a steak dinner where we give thanks, "Thank you for this great food we're about to receive Lord". We're not talking about that right now. We're talking about giving thanks in all circumstances. This means that we have the faith to know that when we're walking through a difficult circumstance, a difficult season, where it's unpleasant, where it's painful, we have enough faith to know that God is working something in us as we're walking through the circumstance with Him, that He's doing a work within us that can only be obtained by clinging to Him in the darkness and so as a result of the fact that we by faith know that even though the circumstance feels unpleasant, God is doing something good in us as a result of it. As a result of knowing that, we can give Him thanks even in hard times.
So I want to encourage us today, if you're in a difficult season in your life right now, just stop for a second and say, "Father God, thank you for this season right now! Because I believe that You are doing something in me, right now, during this season, that I could not receive if things were going easy right now". You see, the Bible says, God causes all things, not just the good and pleasant experiences, but all things to work together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose, to conform us to the image of Christ. So God's desire is for us to have enough faith in Him and to respect Him enough, to believe His Word enough, that regardless of what we are going through in life, we thank Him believing that He's good and He's doing something good in our life regardless of the circumstance and as we do Beloved, we're going to go from strength to strength and when we get strong, we'll get happy.