I think often times God uses circumstances to teach us lessons, and often not the lessons we think we need. One of the lessons that must be driven into us over and over is our reliance on God. Learning to trust Him in all things, and so have peace in difficult situations. Knowing that even if this situation doesn’t get better, our relationship with Him is all we really need to have peace. Its when we take our eyes off God that we lose our bearing and begin to stress out. Lately I have been having a number of things go wrong in my life, and have realized that there is always something stressful like that going on in my life, but God is working it out. From my motorcycle being unridable all year until just a few weeks ago, and then breaking down on my way driving it home from the shop, to my ceiling caving in from water damage and having to go through all the consequences to that, like having to tear out the ceiling, finding asbestos, the asbestos getting in the carpet, having to replace the carpet and repaint the walls because of damage accrued there, not to mention repairing the leak in the upstair bathroom that caused it. And then the fear of breathing asbestos in my home, having to sleep in the basement with the spiders, and other lesser things. God uses all these things to help sober me up and get my attention that I need to be developing my relationship with Him and putting work into it. It is easy when everything is going well, to just start living in indulgence and not be motivated to grow. But God loves us too much to allow that. Like the dentist, who will not just fix the tooth that is hurting, but start poking and prodding around at teeth that don’t hurt yet, and having you do uncomfortable things to improve your dental hygiene. God does the same thing in not being satisfied with anything less than perfection. God’s goal is the same in your life whether you are a spiritual giant or a drug addict in the gutter, to help you grow closer to Him and become more like Him. Isaiah 26:3 says “He will keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” So take heart when difficult circumstances come up, God is perfecting your faith, and because He respects you too much to manipulate you to change, the way He can work is by using circumstances and others to build you up.