TAKE A STEP FORWARD IN DIFFICULTY
MAXIMUM DIFFICULTIES, such as long term illness of a family member or other stressful disruptions of normal everyday living, can occur at any time. For the most part, under these circumstances the sufferers are exempt from many normal responsibilities. For example, people facing those trials would not be expected to have lavish parties at their houses.
Although we admit that difficulties do not keep us from meeting our legal obligations, some of us feel that any difficulty, even a minor one, provides an excuse not to give to the work of God. Indeed, it takes grace to give out of difficulty. We must choose to be like the early Macedonian church, who, despite their crushing impoverished state, were astonishingly generous toward the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.
