The photo of a neat man in a neat lounge catches my eye and I start reading Mpho Lekalakala’s post on LinkedIn:

In 2010, I was a street hawker in Marabastad, Pretoria. I sold cleaning agents and Cool Time ice lollies. I sold my stuff at the Mabopane taxi rank, on the trains, yes, I tried everywhere.

I already had my national diploma in auditing, but there were hardly any jobs. I was hungry. Hawking was the only way to survive.

Sometimes I met my old friends from university who were fortunate enough to get a job. I was happy for them, but I nearly cried when they had to see me like that.

Fast forward a few years and today I run a successful business. I can do the things I love. I am my own boss. I am blessed.

Sometimes God says no, because He knows you deserve so much more than what you are planning.

Mpho concludes with:

Romans 12:12 “Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.”

Wow, this person hit all the curve balls life threw at him one-by-one until the time was right. Hunger drove him to do something that was not in line with the career he had studied for.

Surely, he must have felt embarrassed when he saw his class mates in their neat suits. Mos probably he asked God again and again, “Why do they have a job and not me?”

Today when he looks back, he can see the meaning in his suffering. Now he understands that he first had to struggle through the hardship to learn what it means to really trust in God.

These difficult times made him spiritually mature and now he knows who he is, where he is going, what his calling is, and what it means to hold onto God through thick and thin.

Mpho made the following verse real for me: ⁴So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

May this be true of each of us. May others see our story one day and say that their way of life had taught me to really trust in God and to become spiritually mature as well.

Scripture
James 1:4

Reflection
How do you experience suffering?
How do you experience God’s hand in your suffering?
Can you calmly allow God to work with you?

Prayer
Father, I don’t enjoy the hard times. I just want to get out of it. Help me to take a step back and find out what Your will is. Then I will know what I need to learn from it. I know this. But I still don’t like it. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.