the role/value of adversity/adversary

Adversary = one that contends with, opposes, or resists :an opponent or enemy

The name Satan means adversary in the Hebrew language.

Does the Devil exist, or is he a fictional character (like Santa Claus , the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Bogeyman)fabricated by the human mind and projected outward upon the external world as a scapegoat to be blamed for our own behavior.
The Devil does not make us do it!
The Devil --although vilified/demonized by man --is really the most loyal devotee of God!
see "The Devil--God's misunderstood angel"



" My son ,despiseth not thou the chastening of the Lord,nor faint
when thou art rebuked by Him.
For whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth,and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
If you endure chastening ,God dealeth with you as with sons;for
what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Now no chastening for the present seemeth
to be joyous,but grievous:nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness." .
Hebrews 12;5-11

Purification by passage through the furnace of affliction:When Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man,it first disciplines his mind with suffering,and his bones and sinews with toil.It exposes him to want and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind,hardens him,and remedies his deficiencies.
Therefore men of exceptional quality and wisdom attribute these powers/gifts to the trials they have endured.

Man is like a child who requires parental guidance and discipline. A child would not willingly choose to be reproved ,nor would man choose difficulties for himself.Both would choose a life free of obstacles and trials--a life of comfort and ease.But it is only through confronting and overcoming adversity that we grow.

When adversity strikes and our life's experience suddenly goes contrary to our plans,expectations and desires,our trust in life and the universe is undermined/challenged.We cannot understand how such events can lead to a realization of what we have preconceived/imagined to be our highest good.
But what would life be without challenges and adversity? How we respond determines their effect on us.
Adversity can be experienced as an opportunity for growth and expansion,for the discovery of hidden personal strenght and other intangible qualities.
Adversity creates the opportunity to bring out the potential that is in us.
It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we grow.
Struggle is essential to growth!
Adversity challenges us to stand above the immediate experience in wch we find ourselves immersed,in order to see the larger spiritual picture.
Adversity shatters the barriers of protection we have constructed around us thereby liberating us from the shell/shackles of constraint wch obstruct our growth. Personal growth does not occur except in response to resistance,antagonism and adversity.

Perhaps this is why human beings always seem to need an enemy, an adversary, an opponent,and why democracy (like marriage) requires a "loyal opposition". (see "the need for an enemy")
An enemy is an object of hatred and hostility!
If a task is too easy and we always seek comfort, nothing changes in the brain.
Muscles wch do not push and pull against an opposing force become weak.
A man who is content with what he's got will not strive to achieve/gain something more.

Even in the midst of hardship it is possible to find reason to experience joy.
Who has not looked back at a difficult time in their life and seen it as a blessing in disguise!

No one seeks out suffering or pain ,but we must admit that adversity (like pain) does serve a purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Adversity causes us to slow down and turn inward,to reassess our values and priorities, and to strenghen our relationships with self, family,friends ,and God!

Rising to the challenges of environmental adversity:
Without challenging factors(stressors) from the environment we would lose our capacity to adapt to change and become less able to cope with parasites, predators, pathogens,and disease.Even our muscles and bones would atrophy and become weak if we did not have to use them daily to overcome the opposing force of gravity.
The brain does not develope without challenges.

Sometimes adversity overwhelms us--undermining our health and our capacity to cope and survive.But unless it kills us, adversity usually makes us stronger.

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
--Albert Einstein

Life is good to us by giving us the vital ability of suffering.
Through suffering, we recognise and appreciate joy and happiness.
"We're like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor
carves the forms of men.
The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much, are what
make us perfect.
The suffering in this world is not the failure of God's
love for us; it is that love in action."

--C.S.Lewis

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

In the following story in the Bahá’í Writings, Bahá’u’lláh tries to explain how our attitude and feeling about what happens to us (especially in times of distress or crisis) is different if we have trust that all things will work out in our best interest.

The story refers mainly to man’s search for the Divine,... but it is applicable to handling a critical illness or any other seeming adversity :

There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart's wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of the beloved one deliver him.

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for the marketplace. On a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: "Surely this …, my angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me." His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden.

And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: "O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; …, bringing life to this wretched one!"

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hid behind the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love's desert to the sea of his loved one, and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the heart's physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.

     (Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 14)