All this week we’ve been looking at five lessons from the persecuted church regarding how God uses problems and persecutions for our good and His glory. These are lessons that we must teach our kids as they grow up in a youth culture that’s increasingly set against the Gospel and God’s people. Today’s lesson is this: God uses problems and persecution to perfect you. Paul writes these words in Romans five: “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Paul Estabrooks from the Open Doors USA ministry reminds us that problems, when responded to correctly, are character builders. Our kids need to learn that God is more concerned with our character than our comfort. Christianity can cost us our earthly lives. But at the end, the outcome is eternal life.