While serving and chatting with friends, my raspy, and newly baritone voice, gave evidence to the cold I’d been fighting all week. Amidst the, “I’ll pray for you” and, “Oh, you sound awful,” came something along these lines. “I pray that stuff away, it can’t come on me.” The words were pregnant with the implied idea that sicknesses (or any “difficult” thing) are always something that we ought to/should be able to pray away.

The poor guy had no idea what puddle he’d just stepped into.

Thus began my short, but penetrating theological dive into the value of life’s thorns and struggles. My main point to him was this; our life is for one purpose. To bring Him glory. Sometimes, that is best achieved through a miraculous healing or intervention, but much more often, God’s glory is manifested in how He walks us through life’s inevitable challenges. As those around us see His peace in the midst of our pain, His comfort as we grieve, or His strength…