Fruitful Suffering

"Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, 'It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household.' The second son he named Ephraim and said, 'It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering." Genesis 41:51-52

Many of the names in the Bible mean something and the names given mean something.

When Joseph was promoted to ruler over all Egypt, he shared some profound insights about what he learned through his adversity. Whenever God takes us through the land of suffering, he will always teach us two things from our affliction. 1) We will forget the pain when we are healed. 2) We will be fruitful in the suffering. God does not waste our "valley experiences" if we are willing to learn and be blessed from them. His desire would be to teach us virtue from our times of testing. He may very well make us fruitful in the exact area of our testing. He never promises us to never have times of trouble, but He does promise to never leave us or forsake us and to see us through.

Sometimes it is necessary to suffer some so we can grow in our faith and trust. Often God will prosper us or bless us when we allow ourselves to learn from our "valleys". If it were not for the valleys we wouldn't appreciate the mountaintops so much. When the fruitful time comes we can quickly forget how tough it was to get to that point, but we are better for having gone through a tough time. When we forget our troubles, then we can better receive His blessings. Sometimes we wouldn't know, accept or understand our blessings or His provision if we hadn't come through the valley of trouble. We grow from our painful experiences and when we see and know God's hand helping us we can even be thankful and grateful for tough times. When suffering is fruitful because of our perseverence, trust and obedience through the process, the fruit of that experience is very sweet. That is when we grow from fruitful suffering.

In His Grip,
Pastor Fred

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