PROSPERITY OF ADVERSITY

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country? It always amazed me as a small child to travel into Old Mexico. Living in America where even the poor had an abundance of wealth, it was an eye opener to go to a land where people lived with so little or with nothing at all.
 

Many times we would stay a week or more and share the gospel with the people there. Even as a very small child it was obvious that their lives were surrounded by the love of their friends and family. Their wealth wasn't in their homes, cars, boats or clothing. They had little money but they had something that many America's were missing.

 

The people in Old Mexico had adversity and they knew this was their way of life. The thing they had learned was to gain prosperity from their adversity. The people in this region taught their children at a very young age to deal with adversity in a way that brought forth prosperity in their inner being.

 

Isn't this what most people are searching for? They are thinking that a new car, new house, or new mate will bring them the prosperity they are searching for. We have become a nation that is internally bankrupt but externally full of prosperity.

 

The problem with this is; when your house is gone your inner being is empty. When your car is gone, than you are broken. You are left spiritually bankrupt.

 

What happens to the person that has learned prosperity of adversity? When all the wealth of this world is removed from their being, they are still prosperous. When their body is attacked, their soul is still prosperous.



Prosperity of adversity is the greatest riches of all,

To learn that whenever bad comes our way: it's a bridge and not a wall.

The bitterness that we once had, was laid down at our feet,

They became the stepping stones of success and not a path of great defeat.

The greatest servants in the world, have learned adversity to extreme,
Learning not to focus on the hurt but focusing on Christ supreme.
Finding the Lord will always catch us, no matter how far the fall,
When it seems the bottom was falling out, on the Lord is who to call.

The bridge of crossing is easier now as we watch the waters flow,
The trials are being washed away so that we will be free to grow.
As the time passes by, so do the things that once did weigh us down,
Prosperity of adversity is not a weight, but it's a crown.
(Written by Sherry Long)
Inspired by a sermon preached by Charles Stanley

II CORINTHIANS 12:10-12

And he said unto me,

My grace is sufficient for thee:

for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly therefore will

I rather glory in my infirmities,

that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities,

in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,

in distresses for Christ’s sake:

for when I am weak, then am I strong.