I really enjoy the movie "Eat, Pray, Love." There is a lot of wisdom expounded in that film. I have yet to read the book though it awaits my return to the USA on a bookshelf in my father-in-law's house.
Currently, among the several books I have going, I am reading one titled "A Praying Life - Connecting With God in a Distracting World" by Paul E. Miller.
As I read this morning this quote in his book jumped out at me:
If we think we can do life on our own,
we will not take prayer seriously.
Our failure to pray will always feel like something else -
a lack of discipline or too many obligations.
But when something is important to us, we make room for it.
Prayer is simply not important to many Christians because
Jesus is already an add-on. That is why, as we'll see
later, Suffering is so important to the process of learning how
to pray. It is God's gift to us to show us what life is really like.
I find that so true. I cannot parent well, be a good wife, or a growing Christian without prayer. Prayer is our life blood. Prayer is my life blood. God wants relationship with each of us and often He leads through trials and storms to bring us closer to Him.
Ruin is the gift. Suffering is important to the process of drawing closer to Christ.
I'll be blogging more about this role of suffering in the Christian life.
I highly recommend reading this book, too. We have started reading it as a family in our devotion time.
Romans 5:2-4 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
Hebrews 2:9-11 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers...
2 Corinthians 1: 5-6 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.