Hello again and welcome to the program. We're here with a little strength for today. We're going to look at understanding why we go through the hard times. I'm reading in Philippians 1 verse 12, Paul said, Now a lot of things happened to Paul the apostle that were harder to deal with than most of the things we're going through. And he said, I want you to understand. The word understand is in the scriptures 91 times. Understanding is in the Bible 160 times. Understand is 11 times, for a total of 292 times, God refers to us understanding. Now we need to understand that the difficult times are not problems, they're projects. One thing we see here, he said in verse number 13, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in other places. He got to influence unsaved people in the palace and in the prison, wherever he was. Someone has said there's five gospels. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian. And most people aren't going to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. We preach more by what we do than by what we say. It has to do with how we handle the hard times. And Paul had a handle on that. Not only a testimony to unsafe people, but an influence on Christians. In verse 14, he said, and many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Paul's whole purpose, as we see in Philippians 1-16, is to preach Christ. The word Christ is found 18 times in Philippians chapter 1 alone, and 37 times in the book of Philippians, and there's only four chapters. Philippians 1.18, he says, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice. Philippians 1.20, he said, according to my earnest expectation and my hope, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. Philippians 121, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. In verse 23 he said, for I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. And then in verse 29 he said unto these Christians at Philippi, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. And so once again in verse 13 Paul says, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in other places.