Finding power and praise in life's pits

Many drive Toyotas for good reason. Toyotas are world renowned for their dependability. The reason Toyotas are maybe the world's most dependable cars are because their individuals parts have greater tolerance and durability than those of competing vehicles. One of the joys of our journey we tend to not embrace is the privilege of allowing Christ the opportunity and time to build our tolerance level. Many of you like me are wimps at our best and in need of God's infusion of strength and grace if we're to portray the strength of Christ the way we ought. God seeks to shower grace into our spirits and endue us with the strength we need to experience joy amidst life's problems and pains. Before Paul could speak of his ability to do everything through Christ, His strength; He spoke of the training God gave him to build his tolerance. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, Phili. 4:12 (NLT) Paul understood that weakness is the gateway to finding our true worth and rejoicing; for genuine joy is not in passing things or our feeble strength but in Christ. God desires us to live with His imprint, REJOICING. As He crafts us in the crucible of reproach, criticism, and need; let's see by faith the outpouring of character, tolerance, and strength He's infusing into our lives. As they say, no pain, no gain. Welcome the growing pains Christ engineers into your experience and you'll have the testimony of Paul, Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again-rejoice! Phili. 4:4 (NLT).

God, why the pain?

A close look at the words suffering and comfort will provide you with a rainbow of enlightenment. Suffering, Biblically, is a first step in the direction of comfort. God's passion is that we forge strength through the valleys of life, personal strength that becomes encouragement to others. Ever had someone tell you "it's gonna be okay" without the slightest idea of the pain you were experiencing. Their input into your life may have been well-intended sympathy, but it proved to be well short of the empathy you needed. The path you journey is a God-given one, designed to build you and pour useful empathy into you that will prove useful to  others; you'll gain this needful empathy as you keep moving through the valleys of life to its mountaintops. Later, you'll look down toward the verdant valleys you traversed before coming through your troubles; it's then you need to help some soul who needs the God-infused empathy you now live to give. You've been there, worn the t-shirt, you can now truly comfort them with the comfort you've known for enduring suffering. Suffering is the only sure route into pure, unbridled comfort. It high time we embrace our pain as others' gain, as our pain helps us better understand and better others. Here's a catchy story of our need to endure, seeing Christ the invisible One by faith from Tim Elsmore. 
I remember hearing a story about a frog who was hopping along a road when he fell into a large hole. He tried and tried to hop out, but was unable. As his friends came by, the frog beckoned them to go get help. Each of them ran for help, but upon their return they saw the frog hopping along the road again. He was obviously free from the confinement of the hole. When they reminded him that he couldn’t get out, he said: “Oh, you are right. I couldn’t get out. But then I heard a huge truck approaching and I realized…I had to.” Here’s to your best gifts emerging as you face that huge truck coming at you.