only one cause for boasting, and that is in knowing Jehovah.​—Jer. 9:23, 24.

Some persons worry about specific physical abuse that they may have to endure. This is unwise. We do not know what hardships we, individually, may encounter. Not all will meet the same trials. The vital thing is to trust in Jehovah. “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out in order for you to be able to endure it.”​—1 Cor. 10:13.

Jehovah wants his people to be happy. He takes no pleasure in seeing his people suffer. But he does make even those enduring hardship happy because they have the opportunity now to make an everlasting record of integrity to the Universal Sovereign Jehovah God.​—Matt. 5:11, 12.

Rejoicing in “the Fine Fight” of the Faith

As told by Väinö Pallari

I GREW up in Finland, a land that is 92 percent Lutheran. When I became one of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses in 1930, my employment as a schoolteacher was threatened.

This was because the Bible Students, as the Witnesses were then known, were viewed as being Communists and were told that they would be sent to Russia. The school board threatened me with this if I did not leave the school district voluntarily.

But I refused to leave my job. The school board then tried to get me to promise not to go from house to house, preaching a “new doctrine” that the community could not tolerate. I could not, of course, give such a promise; in fact, it was my goal someday to preach the good news of God’s kingdom full time.

Next, the school board evidently worked on the parents of my pupils. They tried to get the pupils to go on strike. But not one stayed away from school.

Finally, frustrated in their attempts to get me removed, the school board simply abolished the position I held. However, the outcome of such a procedure was that I would be entitled to a considerable income. I did not raise any objection, as the financial assistance would simply help me to get started in the full-time preaching work​—my ultimate goal. The opportunity that I had waited for presented itself, and I seized it, rejoicing that at last I could devote all my energies to “the fine fight” of the faith, as the apostle Paul did.​—2 Tim. 4:7.

Also, about that time I received a letter from the Watch Tower Society, asking me to help to organize the house-to-house preaching work. This was a very happy time. I was in the preaching work with my Christian brothers every day and held meetings in the evening​—yet it did not seem too tiring.

THE WAR YEARS

In 1939 the threatening clouds of war gathered on the horizon. The people in Finland were in a very anxious frame of mind. As Jehovah’s Christian witnesses were neutral in political affairs, they were looked on with disfavor and were no longer