“Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer.”
2 Corinthians 1:6 (NLT) Everyone is going to face problems and difficulties in life. God will give you all the grace you need to endure those hard times. But he also wants you to be willing to use your experiences to help other people. God doesn’t want you to waste your hurt! The Bible says, “Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer” (2 Corinthians 1:6 NLT). Did you know that God sometimes allows you to go through problems for the benefit of other people? He may let you go through a period of darkness, depression, or discouragement so that you can comfort others with the same comfort he gives you. In fact, your greatest life messages always come out of your weaknesses, not your strengths. Who can better help somebody who’s in recovery for alcoholism than somebody who’s also walked through recovery? Who can better help somebody who is going through the pain of a divorce than someone who has healed from divorce? And who can better help the parent of a seriously ill child than another parent who’s experienced the same heartache? The things in your life you wish you could change are often the very things God wants to use to help you grow in spiritual maturity and as a ministry. While God works in you, he also wants to work through you to help others. The Bible says that love never gives up. It is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. Love considers other people. Love turns other people’s problems and needs into your problems and needs. Love looks at other people like God sees them and gives them what they need, not what they deserve. That’s what Jesus did. He suffered all kinds of problems and shame and went to the cross—not for his benefit but for our salvation. Follow his example, and use your hurt to help others.
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“Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.”
Isaiah 49:15-16 (NLT) Just like a mother cannot forget her child, God cannot forget you. Have you been abandoned in life by a spouse or a parent? God will never abandon you. Have you been rejected by those you trusted the most? God will never reject you. Have you been left behind by the people who were supposed to walk through life with you? God will never leave you alone. When you go through any of those painful experiences, you will be tempted to think that God has forgotten you. But that’s impossible! You were made to be loved by God. He created you as an object of his love. In fact, did you know God has a tattoo of your name engraved on the palms of his hands? The Bible says in Isaiah 49:15-16, “Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands” (NLT). Where did he get the tattoo? On the cross. With nail-pierced hands and outstretched arms, he showed you just how much he loves you. He loves you so much it hurts! He loves you so much he’d rather die than live without you. He loves you with an everlasting love. In heaven, no one is going to have any scars except Jesus. His body will have all the scars of the cross. Why? Because he wants to always remember how much he loves you. When you don’t understand what’s going on in your life, you need to remember this: You may not have a solution. You won’t always have the answers. And you won’t always get an explanation. But you do have God’s presence and his love in your life. When life doesn’t make sense, you have to hold on to that promise. “This small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble.”
2 Corinthians 4:17 (GNT) When we go through difficulties in life, the first thing we often try to do is blame somebody else. But it doesn’t matter where your problem came from—God still has a purpose for it in your life. Even when you do something foolish, God can use it. Even when other people hurt you intentionally, he can use it. Even when the Devil tries to mess things up, God can bring good out of it. God’s purpose is greater than your problems and your pain. He has a plan! You need to look past the temporary pain and look instead at the long-term benefit in your life. Romans 5:3-4 says, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that . . . they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady” (TLB). What’s the purpose of your problems and difficulty? God wants you to learn something. Every storm is a school. Every trial is a teacher. Every experience is an education. Every difficulty is for your development. Most of us are slow learners. If you don’t learn something the first time, God will bring it up again in your life. It will come back because God is more interested in your character than he is in your comfort. He is more interested in seeing you become more like Christ than he is in making things easy for you. Maybe you are facing a major difficulty right now. It may be an illness, guilt, a financial problem, or strain in a relationship. Does God have a word for you while you’re going through your difficulty? Absolutely. God is essentially saying to you, “Don’t give up; grow up. Let me make you more like me through this painful situation.” Through your difficulty, let God fulfill his purpose in you—to transform you more and more into the person he created you to be. Trust this truth: “This small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble” (2 Corinthians 4:17 GNT). “Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me.”
Psalm 103:2 (NLT) When our dreams are delayed, we tend to forget things. We forget what God has done in our lives and his goodness in the past. We forget that God is with us. We forget God’s power that he uses to fulfill our dreams. The Israelites made this same mistake in the wilderness: “They forgot the many times [God] showed them his love, and they rebelled against the Almighty at the Red Sea. But he saved them, as he had promised, in order to show his great power . . . But they quickly forgot what he had done and acted without waiting for his advice” (Psalm 106:7-8, 13 GNT). It’s unbelievable how short their memory was! In Egypt, God sent 10 plagues on the Egyptians just to rescue his people. But the children of Israel forgot about God’s actions just days later when they were at the Red Sea, saying, “We’re all going to die!” They forgot what God had done. Then, God miraculously opened the Red Sea, and they crossed it on dry land, but they forgot all about it just a few days later when they thought they would die of thirst. Then, God miraculously provided water in the desert, but they forgot all about it just a few days later when they thought they would die of starvation. They were constantly forgetting what God had done for them! But we shouldn’t be too quick to judge them—because we do the exact same thing. When a delay occurs in our lives, we start acting like God has never done anything for us. Has God done things for you in the past? Sure he has. And you can count on him to do more things for you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Instead of forgetting, you need to remember God’s promises. There are more than 7,000 of them in the Bible. Whenever you have a problem, find a promise like 2 Timothy 2:13: “Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, he remains faithful to us and will help us . . . and he will always carry out his promises to us” (TLB). God’s promises are always greater than the problems you’re facing! If God hasn’t fulfilled a promise in your life, it could be because he’s waiting on you. He’s waiting on you to learn to not fear, not fret, not faint, not forget. He wants to develop you before he delivers you. God could do things immediately—but he’s working on a larger agenda. The delays that come in your life do not destroy God’s purpose. They fulfill God’s purpose in your life. “Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me” (Psalm 103:2 NLT). “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."
Romans 12:11-12 (NIV) In order to reach your goals, you have to figure out how to maintain your enthusiasm over the long haul. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” You’ve got to have passion and enthusiasm, or you’re never going to make it to the finish line. How do you do that? How do you stay enthusiastic day after day in spite of delays, difficulties, dead ends, problems, pressures, and criticisms? How do you stay enthusiastic for years on end? Positive thinking is not enough. Pulling yourself up by your psychological bootstraps is not enough. Talking yourself into optimism is not enough. The way you stay enthusiastic for a lifetime is found in the word “enthusiasm,” which comes from the Greek word en theos. En is the Greek word for “in.” Theos is the Greek word for “God.” So en theos means to be “in God.” When you get in God, you will be enthusiastic. It’s the kind of enthusiasm that isn’t affected by the economy or the weather or your circumstances. It’s eternal, because you are tied to the eternal God. You are in Christ. Paul tells you how to be “in God”—enthusiastic—in Romans 12:11-12: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (NIV). If you want to reach your goals, you need to get God-given enthusiasm by being joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. “You have everything when you have Christ, and you are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power.”
Colossians 2:10 (TLB) If you’re ready to make a fresh start, you need to take a personal inventory. That means you take stock of and evaluate what you’ve got to work with. When you do a personal inventory, ask yourself these three questions: What are your assets? Look at your physical assets, your educational assets, and your financial assets. And remember your spiritual assets as a child of God. Colossians 2:10 says, “You have everything when you have Christ, and you are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power” (TLB). What have you learned? Take time to write down lessons you’ve learned about life, yourself, family, God—whatever you can think of. Galatians 3:4 says, “Did all your experience mean nothing at all?” (GNT) You won’t waste your experiences if you learn from them. Especially pay attention to your painful experiences—because God never wastes a hurt. Instead of having a pity party, learn from your pain. Write down the lessons. Stop regretting and rehearsing your mistakes and start learning from them. Why? Because innovation is always built on failure. It’s how you recognize what doesn’t work. You can also review what Bible teaching has taught you. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:14, “You must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you” (NLT). Who can help you in your fresh start? Proverbs 15:22 says, “Get all the advice you can, and you will succeed; without it you will fail” (GNT). Pride often keeps people from reaching their dreams and goals. Instead of asking for advice, people insist on figuring things out themselves. The Bible says pride leads to destruction. It also says that God gives grace to the humble. Why? Because the humble are teachable. You’re never going to have a fresh start if you act like you’ve already arrived. You need other people to speak truth, point out your blind spots, encourage you, and help you remember God’s promises. When you take a thorough, honest inventory of your life, you’ll see how God has prepared you to make a fresh start. “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
Romans 12:19 (ESV) Life is not fair. God never said it would be! Life is unfair because there is sin in the world. Jesus came to make things right, and, one day, they will be. But, right now, sometimes bad people prosper. Sometimes good people suffer. Sometimes innocent people get hurt. If you have been discriminated against because of your race, culture, language, or gender, if you’ve been abused, if you have been harassed or mistreated—God has seen every hurt in your life, and he grieves over injustice, too. So why didn’t he stop it? God could stop all the evil in the world just like that. But it would mean taking away our freedom to choose. God may not stop a hurt from happening, but God is keeping a record. Not only that, but he’s “storing up your tears in a bottle” (Psalm 56:8). The Bible also says, “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19 ESV). Because God is loving, he is also a God of justice. To allow evil to hurt his children and not seek justice would be unloving. Since God seeks justice, you don’t have to spend your life holding on to hurts. In fact, God doesn’t want you to waste one second of your life on resentment, retaliation, or revenge. That’s just going to fill you with the poison of bitterness. Don’t waste your life on bitterness! Some might be allowing people who hurt you 10 years ago to still hurt you today because you’re holding on to the memory of that hurt. That’s foolish! They can only hurt you when you choose to hold on to the hurt. You have to let it go. Justice delayed is not justice denied. God is very aware of what people have done to you, and there will be a day of reckoning. Do you trust him? If you do, you’ll let it go. Surrender your hurt to Jesus, and let him settle the score. “I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”
Isaiah 45:3 (NIV) We long to be known, and one of the first ways we are known is by our name. God says, “I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name” (Isaiah 45:3 NIV). God is personal, and he calls you by name. There is nothing more intimate than being fully known—all of your weirdness and weaknesses, what makes you laugh and cry, your fears, hopes, and dreams. No one will fully know you on earth, but God does. He’s the only one who sees through the layers of your personality to the core of your being. The God who calls you by name has hidden riches in your suffering and darkness. He can intervene in your darkness, and he will be close to you in that darkness. This should lead you to praise him. What we know about God leads us to worship. When Job lost everything that mattered to him, he worshiped because of what he knew to be true about God: “Job stood up, tore his robe in grief, and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother, and naked I will return. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away! May the name of the Lord be praised’” (Job 1:20-21 GW). Even as Job lost everything, what he knew about God caused him to fall on his face and say, “God, I don’t know what’s going on, but I understand you’ve given and you’ve taken away, and I praise your name.” Worship itself is a treasure in the darkness. Even in pain, you can know that he is a good and loving God. He knows you by name and notices every detail of your life. He is in control. And he has a plan for your life. You must be open to the possibility that God has gold and diamonds hidden in secret places and be ready to receive and embrace these treasures as he shows them to you. Whether he intervenes or not, you can know he is the intimate, personal God who will be close as you walk through the darkness. This is how you face the darkness and find hope. “Be patient, resting your hearts on the ultimate certainty.”
James 5:8 (PHILLIPS) We’re living in strange and uncertain times. We don’t know what’s happening in the world. We get conflicting information from every source. We don’t know how long this coronavirus is going to continue spreading. We’re not sure how to make wise decisions without all the information we need. When so many things are uncertain, we can remain certain of this one truth: God is in control. “Brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord comes again. See how farmers wait for their precious crops to grow. They wait patiently for fall and spring rains. You, too, must be patient. Don’t give up hope. The Lord will soon be here. Brothers and sisters, stop complaining about each other, or you will be condemned. Realize that the judge is standing at the door” (James 5:7-9 GW). Why does James remind us several times in this passage that the Lord is coming back? Because it’s the ultimate proof that God is in control. History is God’s story. It’s not circular. There is no circle of life. History is linear, and it’s moving to a climax. God has a plan. God has a purpose. And one day Jesus is going to return. Everything is on schedule. We don’t know when he’s coming back, but the Bible talks more about Jesus’ second coming than it does about his first coming. That means it should change how we live our lives every day. We should be living with great expectation! Although the situation may seem out of control and what you’re going through may be painful, nothing is beyond God’s control. Be patient. God’s timing is perfect. He’s never late. He is in control. The J.B. Phillips translation of James 5:8 says, “Be patient, resting your hearts on the ultimate certainty.” What’s the ultimate certainty? Jesus is going to come back one day. Nothing’s going to stop that. Knowing that history is under God’s control and that Jesus has promised to return should give us all the confidence we need in uncertain times. When you feel like you can’t count on anything else, count on this: God’s got this. And Jesus will come back one day soon to make all things right and new. “If by continuing to live I can do more worthwhile work, then I am not sure which I should choose. I am pulled in two directions. I want very much to leave this life and be with Christ, which is a far better thing; but for your sake it is much more important that I remain alive. I am sure of this, and so I know that I will stay. I will stay on with you all, to add to your progress and your joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:22-25 GNT).
When you stay focused on your purpose instead of your problem, you can be happy even when life seems to be falling apart. Paul was an old man when he was in prison in Rome. He was a long way from home. He was awaiting execution. Everything had been taken from him—his friends, his freedom, his ministry, even his privacy, with a guard chained to him 24 hours a day. It wasn’t exactly a happy time for Paul. But there was one thing they could not take away from Paul: his purpose. Paul made the choice to stay focused on his purpose, even when he had lost everything else. What was his purpose? Serving God by serving others. Paul says in Philippians 1:22-25, “If by continuing to live I can do more worthwhile work, then I am not sure which I should choose. I am pulled in two directions. I want very much to leave this life and be with Christ, which is a far better thing; but for your sake it is much more important that I remain alive. I am sure of this, and so I know that I will stay. I will stay on with you all, to add to your progress and your joy in the faith” (GNT). Viktor Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was taken to one of the death camps in Nazi Germany. All of his family and all of his friends were gassed and murdered. He talks in his book about a day he stood in front of the Gestapo stark naked. They’d taken away the prisoners’ clothes and even Frankl’s wedding ring. As he stood there with nothing at all, he suddenly realized there was one thing the Nazis could not take away from him: his choice of how he would respond. You cannot totally control what other people do to you. You cannot totally control what other people do around you. But you can control how you respond. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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