The Apostle Paul said, I know both how to be abased
and I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things, I'm
instructed both to be full and to be hungry,
both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
And so the Apostle Paul, he went through really hard times
where he was in jail, where he was beaten,
where he didn't have any food to eat,
where he was shipwrecked out in the ocean.
And he said, I've learned in whatsoever state
I am, therewith to be content.
And so if we went through life and everything went well
for us all the time, we wouldn't learn how to be content.
We would be a spoiled brat.
We have to go through times of suffering and want and hunger
to make us appreciate the things that we have.
I remember when I went to Germany for three months
when I was 18.
And in Germany, there's no free refills at any restaurant
that you go to.
I mean, can you imagine that?
No free refills.
And the drinks are tiny.
And the drinks are expensive.
And if you go to a restaurant, they actually give you,
and only in Germany, but they give you
a little glass that is like a measuring cup that
has little lines on it.
So instead of just, you know, in America,
you just pour you a glass of water,
pour you a glass of Coca-Cola, whatever,
it has a little line that they fill it up
to that says 0.5 liters or 0.2 liters.
And usually, I could only afford the 0.2 liters.
You know, sometimes I really splurged
and got the 0.5 liter.
I mean, in America, 0.5 liter, that's about, what, a pint?
That's like, OK, I'm ready for my refill now.
But I remember the first time I went to a restaurant
in Germany, it was just like, all right, refill.
And it's like, no, that's another $5.
Whoa, man.
The drink was like almost, seriously,
if the food was $10, the drink would be like $5.
The drink was about half what the food would cost,
wherever you went.
And then I remember the people that I was staying with,
they had bottles of carbonated water, bottles of lemonade.
But you could tell that they kind of
felt that I was drinking a little too much water.
They didn't say anything.
Oh, you're already done with the water that we gave you, huh?
Oh, so you already drank that lemonade.
So you know, you started to get the message like, OK,
I'm not supposed to be drinking a lot of water.
You know, I'm used to growing up with just unlimited water.
And they're like, don't drink the tap water, it's poison.
Just drink this little measuring cup.
Oh, man.
So then I remember just the whole time I was there,
just three months of being thirsty.
Just three months of being thirsty.
And I remember I got back and all I could think about
was just drinking as much as I want.
And I remember I got home and I went to the grocery store
and I just bought like a bottle of apple juice,
a bottle of orange juice, a bottle of soda.
And I just went home and I'm just drinking and drinking.
It was just, oh, it's so good.
And it made you appreciate something that you never
appreciated before.
And you didn't appreciate it because you
hadn't gone three months of never getting enough to drink.
And it was just so refreshing.
That's how life is.
You go through life just getting everything you want,
it turns you into a bad person.
It turns you into a spoiled brat.
But when you go through periods of suffering
and periods that are bad, it makes
you enjoy the good times.
So we need to just trust God and let him take us
through some bad times.