Bible Verses About Afflictions Made Beneficial

Some time later God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered.

“Take your son,” God said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

Then they said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.”

And now, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me into this place, because it was to save lives that God sent me before you.

God sent me before you to preserve you as a remnant on the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God, who has made me a father to Pharaoh—lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the water there because it was bitter. (That is why it was named Marah.)

So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

And Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log. And when he cast it into the waters, they were sweetened. There the LORD made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested them,

Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Intercede with the LORD so He will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses interceded for the people.

When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice.

For the LORD your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which He swore to them by oath.

Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.

Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the LORD.

If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people,

and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

But because his heart was proud, Hezekiah did not repay the favor shown to him. Therefore wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.

Then Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart—he and the people of Jerusalem—so that the wrath of the LORD did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah.

And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.

Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations,

but if you return to Me and keep and practice My commandments, then even if your exiles have been banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for My Name.’