Grow Stronger than You Have Ever Been: Embrace the Hardship of COVID-19
(If you missed Part 1 of this series, click here. Part 3 is now up, over here.)
You determine how strong you grow.
A track coach stands by the starting line with two athletes. One athlete grins. The other groans.
Both athletes will suffer today. Their bodies will be pushed to their limits. One of them entrusts their well-being to the coach, knowing that the coach understands how to use this suffering for good. The other chooses not to trust the coach and gives minimal effort, groaning through it all.
One will grow stronger today. The other won’t.
You determine how strong you grow.
This is how the Bible frames hardship:
Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
— 1 Peter 4:19
Take the first line: those who suffer according to God’s will.
Immediately objections arise: How could a loving God make someone suffer? Why would God ever will for someone to suffer? Isn’t that cruel?
The answer is that God is a good coach. He puts hardship in our path so that we can grow from it.
When is it God’s will for us to suffer? When we need that hardship to grow stronger.
God is never sadistic. He loves His children. Because He loves us, He wants us to grow strong. For that, we need hardship.
No athlete grew faster by sitting on the sidelines eating chips. For that, they need the hardship of training. So do we.
Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
Hardship by itself does nothing. An athlete who resents their coach and fights back against their training regimen doesn’t grow very strong from it.
To benefit from hardship, we need to trust that our coach knows what he’s doing.
We entrust our souls to God, just as an athlete entrusts their physical well-being to their coach. We trust that our souls will come out of this hardship stronger, just as an athlete comes out of their workout stronger.
The more we trust God like this, the more our faith grows. When you come out of the last hardship stronger than before, better able to tackle future hardship, you know that trusting God was the right choice. He is a good coach.
Look again:
Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
We’re not entrusting some hack who has no clue. This is our Creator. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
If God thinks we can make it through, then we can make it through.
But immediately objections rise: what about the one hardship we don’t survive? What about the last hardship we face, the one that ends our lives? What then?
Then He welcomes us Home with open arms.
There is no losing option if we embrace hardship. Either we win by growing stronger, or we win by going Home.
There’s one final aspect, just as critical as the rest:
Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
Having a hard workout is not enough. To grow, an athlete must do good in the midst of their workout: using good form, good breathing techniques, good and faithful obedience to the plan laid out for them. Without good form and good obedience, athletes risk damaging their bodies and getting into messes the coach wanted them to avoid.
Our souls grow in the same way. When we face hardship, we embrace it. We trust God that He knows what He’s doing.
And then we focus on doing good.
We do all that God has commanded us to do, even when the situation is harder than anything we’ve ever faced. We continue to love God and love those around us as well as we care for ourselves. We pursue truth and wisdom. We share what we have generously. We honor and respect everyone around us, whether they’re higher in authority than us, on our same level, or they’ve been entrusted to us. We love. We and laugh and we hope and we obey and we dream and we love.
We do good even when it doesn’t make sense. We do good when everyone else panics and cares about themselves above all. We do good when it means sacrifice for us. We do good when everyone says to give up and abandon hope.
We don’t quit.
We continue to do good, as our Coach commands us. We continue to embrace this hardship, knowing that it’s here to help us grow.
And when we come out the other side, we’ll be stronger. We’ll be built up in love, caring for those around us and deepening our reliance upon God. We’ll be confident in hope when all other hopes fail, because we’re entrusting ourselves to a faithful Creator.
But it’s your choice.
You determine how strong you’ll grow.
Tomorrow we’ll look at two examples — one who embraced hardship and one who refused. You know at least one of these people. But it’s not who you think.
