Has life got you down? Does the reason and purpose for all your trials and troubles escape you? Without meaning to sound sarcastic, allow me to say, “Welcome to the club.” Realistically, it isn’t uncommon for God’s children to ask, “why,” when life’s pressures get to be too much. Knowing the answer to that inevitable “why” won’t make our problems disappear, but it can become the foundation upon which patience and persistence can be built in the midst of it all.

Perhaps the following true story will solidify my point:
During the depression a man lost his job, his wife, and his home, but he tenaciously held onto his faith—which was all he had left. One day he stopped to watch several men doing stonework on a huge church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of stone.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked the man.

The workman replied, “See that little opening up there near the spire? Well, I am shaping this down here so that it will fit in up there.”

Tears filled the eyes of the man as he walked away. God had spoken to him through the workman to explain the ordeal through which he was passing. It was as if the Divine Workman Himself had said, “I am shaping you down here so that you will fit in up there.”(1)

Don’t resist the work of the Divine Workman in your life. Though the result of His work may at times be painful, it isn’t without beneficial purpose.

“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

(1) Mildred Stamm, “Meditation Moments,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Corporation, 1967), Devotion for Feb. 7.