"Take out of my personality anything that is making the problems and pain worse than they need to be. Remove all fear from me. Remove all anger at people and circumstances. Help me to show forth love, joy, and peace to those who do not know you as I do.

"Guide me and my loved ones to safety and health once again.

"Show me what I can learn from the present distress. I want to grow in the knowledge of God and His ways."

Then keep on giving thanks as well as you can, praying always for God to give you the desires of your heart.

Remember, these problems and pains, as miserable as they are, will, if you let them:

Purify you from sin.

Teach you obedience to God.

Change you from blood-life to resurrection-life.

Enable you, in your helplessness, to minister and bear fruit by the resurrection-life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We understand, therefore, that problems and pain play a very important role in our redemption. Apart from them we remain adamic creatures, living in the impulses and passions of the flesh and soul.

The normal life of the human being is the Holy Spirit, the eternal, incorruptible resurrection-life of the Lord Jesus. All saved people of the new world of righteousness will live by the Holy Spirit, as I understand it. But not all will have the Life of God to the same extent. This is why the Bible speaks of the crown of life, that is, the authority and power to rule by the Spirit of God.

We of today who are serving the Lord have the firstfruits of that which one day will release the whole physical realm from the bondage of corruption.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23—NIV)

God never intended that the people He made in His image would crawl on the surface of the earth as animals, suffering the infirmities of the life of flesh and blood. God subjected His future rulers to this miserable existence in order to test them, to make sure that when they are entrusted with true life they will always obey Him.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:2,3—NIV)

"Lord, help us to speedily learn to lean on you for every detail of our life, to live by Your Spirit.

"And to always remember the unchangeable Word of the living God: ‘All things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose in Christ.'

"All things!" (from Problems and Pain)