Creative Adversity

Topics: Suffering, Creativity

In 1832, French engineer Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps was traveling on the Mediterranean Sea. One of the passengers on the ship he was on came down with a contagious disease and the ship was quarantined. Lesseps became very frustrated. To help kill time he read the memoirs of Charles le Pere who had considered the feasibility of building a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. In 1869 the Suez Canal was completed. It was constructed following the design by and under the leadership of de

Lesseps.

It was during that quarantine thirty-seven years earlier that the plan

for the Suez Canal was germinated and conceived by de Lesseps. The entire

world has reaped the benefit ever since.

In my own life and ministry every major change I have made has been

theresult of a set-back or crisis of some kind. Most of the things I

write about have come out of my own struggles and failures and my

subsequent search for answers to these issues. I turned to writing in the

first place three decades ago when I felt God had put me on the shelf and

forgotten I existed. I never wanted to be a writer but writing as a

fellow struggler many others have been helped.

Be assured that God wants to use your trials, failures, and set- backs,

too, not only to help you grow but so you will be able to help others who

are going through the same or similar trials.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of

compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our

troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we

ourselves have received from God." - Paul the Apostle (2 Corinthians

:3-4, NIV)

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please use the struggles in my life to help

me become more Christ-like and compassionate so I can be a comfort to

other fellow-strugglers. In Jesus' name."

From: owner-daily-encounter@gospelcom.net

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