It is in the ordeal that we grow / 4

* Luís Alberto Alves

We can not fall into the error that in serving Jesus Christ, everything will be a sea of ​​roses, we will not have difficulties and the problems will be solved quickly. God has his own style of working. In silence, it does not mean that he is indifferent to the pain of his servants. The problem is that the human being likes to rush the process. It requires the Lord to go out and solve the matter.

Unfortunately there are few Christians who understand these words written and left by James. They also act like ostriches, trying to bury their heads in the ground, thinking that they will escape the trials. They exist to show how low or how high our faith is. Otherwise, the Christian would have disappeared from the churches. Many go to God in the desperate search for blessing. They never desired to receive the blessing in their hearts.

As a pastor, I am disappointed with people who act this way. For me they are mercenaries. They act only to gain financial and sentimental advantages. They never had a serious commitment to the Lord. They imagine that they can use God, as they do here in this rotten world in professional, personal, and even ministerial relationships.

If James were alive today, he would be open-mouthed with the kind of Christians in the churches today. Few seek to behave in ethical standards. They take pleasure in sin and feel no bit of shame. For this vast majority the church is just a meeting point, just like shopping malls, where many exhibit the new clothing or even the newly purchased car.

They do not know how much they can learn in times of trial. Six years ago when I went through the desert of hunger, I learned to value the little. When our refrigerator (by the way, I am going to publish a book with the curious name of "empty refrigerator", where I describe the details of this test to which it has been submitted), it finds itself with nothing inside, when we decide to look upwards, in search of the divine help of Jesus Christ.

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor