Freedom Robbers
I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don’t feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I’m glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. (2 Corinthians 7:8-10) Any great pain or sorrow that weighs us down and almost keeps us from moving is not meant to keep us down, it is meant to drive us to God. Elements of physical suffering, or some mental anguish might have us under its control right now. Some call this "trouble", while others use a more sophisticated term like "affliction" or "trib