Have you heard it said that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it? Is there anything for which the situation is reversed, that everyone is engaged in and no one talks about? You acknowledge your appetites for food and drink as hunger and thirst. Are you equally aware of your desire for meaning and purpose? How many people discuss this openly? Yet you can endure a life of pain easier than you can a life without meaning. Once you understand this you can see it in the actions of people that are difficult to explain any other way. How do you manifest your hunger for meaning in your own life?

Do you consider yourself a good judge of character and able to select the right candidate for important positions? Tax collectors may not be highly esteemed in any culture but in my time they were particularly despised for being in collusion with an occupying oppressor. Yet I called Matthew to leave his seat collecting tribute and follow me to be a disciple and then an apostle. What did I see in him that caused me to call him? Would you have chosen him for this assignment? If you consider yourself a good judge of character you are likely to rely on your own judgment rather than inquiring of me when you have to make choices.

Do you ask me for trials and afflictions? No one does, and I don’t expect you to, but you will have them whether you ask for them or not. Can you see that there are some desirable character traits that can only be acquired through suffering? Longsuffering is only one of these. But even though all suffer, not all grow as a result. What do you have that is more precious and costly than your sorrows? It would be a shame to waste them. Your attitude toward them and the way you respond to them determines whether they will transform your life or just make you miserable.