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The question is not why good people have trials, but how shall good people respond when they are tried?
There is a story of a certain college student in a poetry class who, when called upon to recite lines that he had written by assignment, refused. He was prepared to accept failure rather than the embarrassment of facing the class, inept as he felt he was in this field. The professor, it is reported, said to him, "Young man, it is important that you realize that you arc not a finished product. You are still in the process of creation." In fact, all of us are in the process of creation. "Progress," said Browning in "Paracelsus," "is the law of life. Man is not man as yet." But men do have a divine heritage and we are here for noble purposes. We have an infinitely important future potential if, if we learn. How is it going to happen? Will it be automatic? You who are married, did the ceremony create you or qualify you as properly equipped husbands and wives? Does the birth of a baby into the family qualify you as adequate parents? Does graduation signify that we are educated ?
Learning is not automatic. You do not automatically know how to read because you turn five. Most of us are sensitive to the fact that we still have something to learn at every step of the way. Learning is not automatic. It comes with seeking and searching, with reading and watching, with thinking, praying, and listening.
God loves us and believes in us and has done and will do anything he can to help us, but he will not impose on our free agency.
