What is God teaching me?

This week has, for a number of reasons, had its fair share of challenges. In fact, the last month has, in many respects, been far from easy.

Going through such times should prompt the question "What is God teaching me through this?" It is a good question to ask because undoubtedly he does use circumstances of life to teach us things, and to aid our spiritual growth.

These events do not happen randomly or by accident. God knows that we are going through them, and what lessons he wants to teach us from them. So we need not only to ask the question, but also be prepared to learn the lessons.

One thing that we can be certain of is that an increased knowledge of God will be a big part of the learning process. Whether the challenges are physical or to do with relationships (usually they fall into one of those categories) he wants to improve and deepen our relationship with him. If he is our first priority, then the other things will be put into perspective.

In our small group in college today we were discussing the well known verse from Matthew's gospel:

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (Matt 6 v 33 ESV).

We were looking at this in terms of getting our priorities right in the areas of money, clothes and worry about tomorrow, but it is equally applicable to the way that we face difficulties and challenges.

If we seek him first and his kingdom, then the lessons will be "added to us". He will not only show us what he wants us to learn, but will also give us what we need to put into practice what he is teaching us.