I had an issue where I had to go out and brave the elements.
My fingers got so cold, my pain level went to a 10, like the temperature.
I wasn’t able to wear gloves because of the task I needed to do.
I got to come inside at that point.
It seemed like it took a very long time for my fingers to warm up.
I know after that, if I had stayed outside in the cold,
there would have been numbness and I wouldn’t have felt anything.
That is one of God’s kindnesses to humans in the way He created us.
I considered my neighbor who works out in the elements daily.
When it’s cold, he’s outside, when it’s hot, he’s outside.
He’s tough, he never complains. He just does what needs to be done.
I’m not like him.
I’m not tough in that way.
Maybe in other ways, not with physical discomfort or pain.
Whatever we will face, God will be with us.
We don’t want to be like grumbling Israelites.
When we suffer, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about us
and it doesn’t mean He doesn’t understand our misery.
It is my opinion that the Israelites didn’t make God mad
because they complained,
but because they were not humble toward Him.
Instead, they were demanding
and ready to leave Him whenever anything uncomfortable happened.
They refused to accept their circumstances and blamed Him.
There is a difference.
We have rough waters ahead.
If we have placed our lives in His hands, when difficult circumstances arise,
those circumstances that have been allowed by Him,
He is still there to listen, to help, to answer prayers and to give us strength.
The moment, we humble ourselves and ask for strength,
is the moment He will help us.
Paul said it best:
Not that I speak in respect of want:
for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:
every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full
and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Philippians 4:11-13
Do your best to try to be humble in your suffering.
Unlike the Israelites who blamed God,
and who almost cursed Him for their circumstances:
And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them,
Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!
or would God we had died in this wilderness! Numbers 14:2
I suspect we are about to enter the times that Jesus warned us about.
That means persecution up unto death.
This is not the time to blame God for bad things happening to us.
That is what Jesus told us already to prepare us.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28