Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, March 31st. No one enjoys pain,

but scripture teaches us to endure and grow through it. Here's part one of how to advance through our

adversity. Adversity strikes suddenly and without warning, and somehow you're not sure exactly how to respond.

Because the pain oftentimes is so either physically or emotional intense. You either want to run,

you want to escape in some fashion, you look for somebody to blame, you don't know exactly how

to respond to it. And as I think in the scriptures of all the people who went through adversity,

I come to the New Testament to look at the Apostle Paul and when I look at his life and think

about all the things he went through, yet 2,000 years later, what are we doing? We're saying,

the Apostle Paul said this.

The Apostle Paul said that. Why? Because in his life, he learned so many valuable principles.

And by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he wrote those in letters to the churches. And we have those in

this inspired, infallible, inerrant word of God,

principles to live by. Life is just as tough today in some ways as it was in those days.

And yet those principles are absolutely as applicable today as they were in the days in which

they were written. So I want you to turn, if you will, to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And I want us to read a passive scripture here that describes an

incident in the life of the Apostle Paul in which he describes the adversity that he was going through.

When you turn to this 12th chapter, then I want you to remember this, that adversity is

oftentimes the setback from which we have the potential of making our greatest leaps forward in our

spiritual growth. That adversity is oftentimes the setback from which you and I have the

privilege of being able to take our

greatest leap forward in our spiritual growth. So beginning, if you will, in verse seven, he says,

and because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, truths that God gave to him,

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