In southern Alabama there is a town called Enterprise, where one can find a monument to an insect: the Mexican boll weevil. In 1895 the boll weevil destroyed field after field of cotton, the major cash crop of the county. Desperate to survive the farmers looked for something that would grow in the soil and climate; they knew they had to diversity or die.

Soon they were planting peanuts and by 1919 the county’s peanut harvest was 10 times greater than best cotton crop on record. That year a fountain and monument were built and the inscription reads: “In profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity this monument was erected by the citizens of Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama.” Out of a time of struggle and crisis had come new growth and success.

Adversity produced blessing.

That’s a difficult lesson – one we work hard to avoid. We want to escape trouble and hard times. We often pray for God to rescue us from problems and make everything nice and easy. We want to be comfortable!

Please don’t miss-read this! I’m not suggesting we start building monuments to a divorce, bankruptcy, or cancer diagnosis. But maybe we should consider the possibility that God is leading through those trials to a greater purpose.

Evil, enemies, hardship, pain, grief, foolishness – all have a purpose. They expose the deception of Satan. The truth is all evil has already been defeated. All enemies have already been scattered. All folly has already been exposed!

Instead, our strength is in the Lord who gives us the spiritual eyesight to see what Joseph saw. God is exalted forever. In light of that truth and principle, all else fails to have importance.

“Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand, that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed. But you, O LORD, are exalted forever.” Psalm 92:6-9