The pressure of hard places makes us value life more. Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it’s like being given a new beginning. We learn how much life is worth, and make more of it for God and man. Pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to help and sympathize with them.
There is a shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those, who shrink from every trial. But the man or woman, who suffers much never does this. It’s very tender and gentle, and he or she knows what suffering really means. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “Death working in you.”
Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give force that moves the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great ship across the sea in the face of the winds and waves. —A. B. Simpson