Struggling with Parnasa?

Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

Hodu La'Hashem Ki Tob ! for iPhone users https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ itorah-watch-listen-stream/ id6472929090 for Android users https://play.google.com/store/ apps/details?id=com.itorah.app Everything Hashem does is good, even though sometimes we can't imagine how that could be so. If a person is struggling financially, having trouble supporting his family with their basic needs, he can't see how that could possibly be good. The Shomer Emunim in his derush on bitachon perek 7 quotes from the Baal HaTanya that people who struggle a great deal with parnasa and accept it with love from Hashem gain more from that than tzaddikim who serve Hashem their entire lives with the least amount of physicality possible. It could be that a regular righteous man with a big family struggling with parnasa is becoming more purified in this world with his struggle than even a tzaddik whose life is learning Torah with little physicality, but his needs have been taken care of. The Shomer Emunim adds, of course, this is not talking about someone struggling with parnasa to keep up with his indulgence in Olam HaZeh . We're talking about a person who just wants to get by comfortably, and even with that he struggles. Every little bit of suffering that a person goes through comes from the mercy of Hashem. The Shomer Emunim writes there, sometimes Hashem wants to give a person a big gift or a salvation for a big problem but the way things stand it wouldn't be good for him to get it. So Hashem, in His infinite kindness, will give the person certain afflictions or a loss of money that will make his position ideal for him to receive that gift. Every little bit of suffering cleanses a person and elevates him to a higher level. However, in order for the yissurin to do its full job the person needs to accept it without complaint. The power of accepting yissurin is unbelievable. A man told me he was recently walking and his heel started hurting a lot. It kept getting worse and worse until he couldn't continue walking. He sat down and then remembered all of the emunah lessons he had been learning. He decided to accept the pain with love, and he thanked Hashem for it and asked that it should fulfill its purpose. Thirty seconds later, the pain disappeared. He got up and continued walking like nothing happened. Sometimes Hashem wants to help a person with his spiritual growth and enable him to fulfill his purpose in this world. Yet the way things are, he does not merit to get that help. So Hashem will cleanse him with yissurin to make him worthy. The more a person accepts the yissurin with love, the less he needs of them. If a person is able to not only accept but to even be happy with the yissurin, then the afflictions themselves produce such a great and awesome light. All of the negative forces in this world become gripped with trepidation when they see the great light coming from the person who is happy with his yissurin . Sometimes Hashem lets a person see with his own eyes at least one aspect of why his yissurin were good. A person has millions of benefits that come from his yissurin but seeing even one of them is a great chizuk . A man told me, ten years ago he was struggling so much with parnasa and nothing he was doing at work was helping anyway. So he decided to learn half a day. That decision changed his life for the better in every way possible. Shortly afterward, his business picked up. Today he is still learning half a day. He looks back at that struggle as the greatest chesed that Hashem ever did for him. Everything Hashem does is good. If we believe it, accept it and are even happy with it, it makes the yissurin become infinitely more valuable.