Prosperity and Adversity

I'm not a big fan of adversity. I like things to be easy, comfortable, and smooth. Adversity keeps me awake at night. It consumes my thoughts and drives me crazy.

It also drives me to my knees.

When I'm thinking clearly, I fear prosperity a lot more than I fear adversity because adversity forces me to realize that I am completely inadequate to do what I'm called to do on my own.

Adversity reminds me of reality.

Prosperity breeds complacency. When things are going well, it's too easy to sit back and enjoy it - to think we deserve it. Prosperity is dangerous, because it makes me forget about God.

That's what Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8. For forty years they faced adversity, and it turned their hearts toward God. But as they stood at the gates of the Promised Land, about to experience prosperity they could only imagine, God warned them about what could lie ahead: "You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me" (Deuteronomy 8:17).

I'd prefer prosperity, but I need a little adversity sometimes... just to remind me of reality - that prosperity comes from God.