Pain

Today at youth group, we were talking about the story of Joeseph and the multi-color coat. You may not believe in God, and therefore not care a whole lot about Bible stories, but whether you beleive it or not, it has a good point to it, so keep reading.

Basically, the story is about a 17 year old named Joeseph. [i'll refer to him as joe] Joe has 11 brothers, 10 of them being older than him. His 1o older brothers are into a lot of bad stuff [rape, murder, etc] which Joe refuses to take part in. Because of this, and a few other things, Joe is his father's favorite. Joe's older brothers absolutely hate him for both these reasons. Joe's dad ends up making him an awesome coat that they're all jealous of. They end up deciding to through him in a pit and tell they're dad he got killed by wild animals. So he's sitting in this pit, and some people find him. They end up selling him into slavery.

There's a whole rest of the story [if you care enough, i'm sure you could find an online summary].

Our youth pastor made a very interesting point after going over all of this. In the whole chapter, you never hear Joeseph complain. He takes it all in stride, trusting God will help him through. This brought us into a discussion about pain.

Here are some of his general points. I'll put them in quotes even though they may not be exactly what he said.
-"hard times shape who you are. turning yourself inward and complaining just makes it harder. you need to make the best of it and learn from your experiences."
-"Take a look around the world. Compared to the hardships going on in other countries, or even in ours, your problems really aren't that major. Americans have a tendency to avoid pastes at all costs." he then explained to us that the generation of our grandparents/great-grandparents is often described as the best generation ever. They're the generation that had to experience Pearl Harbor and the Great Depression, two major American hardships. These events helped make them stronger and shaped who they are now.
-"Pain helps you grow."
-"No pain, no gain."

-then he quoted a Bible verse. James 1:2-4
"2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
basically, that verse is saying you have to work hard to become something great.

I didn't get a whole lot out of his message until the end, when he starting talking about pain. I hope you get something out of it to. I probably didn't phrase everything exactly right, so if you have questions, feel free to talk to me.