When it rains…..
Have you ever felt like when it rains it pours sometimes during different periods of your life? It has been a little while since I have been active on my blog or writing in general. My family and I just recently moved from Phoenix to the Twin Cities area and are in that awkward phase of waiting for a loan to be processed on a property so we can move in. We wanted to move to be closer to family and to give our children the same roots that we were blessed to have been raised with living in the Midwest.
With all that said, I want to share some perspectives from the challenges we have been going through recently. Most of the time I try my best to have a positive attitude towards setbacks so they can be used as opportunities to grow, but have you ever felt like they aren’t going to end? Over the past month, I have moved our family across the country and in with relatives (not recommended), we got hit by a truck that did $2,600 worth of damage to my car, found out my dad has cancer, got taken for $1000 on a security deposit, had my character assaulted and currently have sick children. It has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. While I know that many of you can look at this list and make me ashamed that I am even sharing this because you are going through much worse, I also do understand that struggles are real to the individuals that are going through them personally. I have much more to be thankful for, but for the purposes of this post, I will focus on sharing whats on my heart.
Lessons learned….and they don’t come cheap….
I have an awesome wife, brother and a few trusted friends that I always call to talk to when I need perspective and I am so grateful for them. One of my best friends, we will call him Kevin to hide his identity, has always been there for me to help provide a proper, Christ-centered outlook on things when I need it. I am going to share a few principles that I have learned that will help if you apply them when it come to facing life’s obstacles so you can learn the lessons needed. Remember, lessons usually continue until the lesson is learned.
1. God’s in control
One thing my buddy Kevin always reminds me of is that God is in control. Of everything, at all times! No matter what happens, if we keep our minds focused on the fact that nothing happens outside of God’s divine providence, then it will give us peace during difficult times. Every time I think that I am going through struggles alone, I try to pull myself back to remember that everything happens for a purpose and a specific reason. The thing that makes it hard is that we aren’t always told why things happen or for what reason. This is where trust and faith have to be engaged and strengthened. Just understand that God has a plan for our good if we just trust him and seek him through struggles. (Romans 8:28) (Jeremiah 29:11)
2. Look for the lesson
I know this is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but one of the most frequently used methods God employs for character development in us, is through struggles (James 1:2-4). I always preach that we should focus on our blessings to get a proper perspective on our challenges. This, for sure, is not easy. Some people tell me that it is very hard to see the “blessings” when they are walking through such hard struggles. I understand this thinking, but in my experience, the lessons that I have learned through dealing with adversity have actually proven to be the biggest blessings in my life, even though they come hard and usually through pain. Every experience we go through is meant to teach us something and to build our character. Think about all the points in your life when you made it through a hard time and realized, afterwards, that you are now more equipped to handle the next Goliath. God sends us all through the refining fire, at different levels, to grow us into the people He needs us to be in order to accomplish His purpose for our lives. It is a continual and never ending process called sanctification. If you are going through multiple challenges all at once, be encouraged that God is most likely preparing you for the next BIG phase of your mission. I don’t like obstacles as much as the next person, but I do understand now that everything is a process to help me move to the next step of the journey.
3. Trials become testimonies
Have you ever been moved by another persons story of how they overcame a setback? One reason I know that God sends us through the fire is so that we can be a blessing to someone else that is going through the same trial. I don’t know how many times I have personally experienced this. Right when I was at my low, God used the story of another person to touch my soul and change my perspective on what I was going through. It is very powerful! Always be thinking of who we will be lead to help once we make it through our own personal struggles. You just never know how you will be used in touching another persons life through sharing your stories.
4. People and Legacy
The only real things that will last throughout eternity is the souls of people and the legacy they leave behind. What we do with our life does matter and the struggles we overcome to become the people who leave lasting legacies also matter. Our struggles are ultimately not for us to solely learn from. They are meant to grow us personally, be used to prepare us for a larger vision and to share with others along the way. Leaving a lasting legacy always involves making a positive impact in the lives of other people. The struggles that we overcome can serve to give us a bigger platform to share with others.
Every good movie….
Every great book or movie that is memorable in our minds and has made a lasting impression in our lives has followed this process: Dream…Struggle…Victory. We have a great story to tell and the pages are blank for us to write. If we are honest, we all have dreams and hopes for a better future that we currently haven’t attained yet. We start out on the journey with the end vision in mind and then, WHAM, struggles hit. Some people will quit when obstacles appear, hiding behind the excuse that “it wasn’t meant to be or it would have happened easy.” This is a lie that we are told that things are supposed to be easy. If I can leave this post with one final takeaway, I would say that struggles and hard times are necessary in order to get to where we want to go. If we push through the struggles, God has promised to develop us into the people we need to be in order to accomplish what we need to accomplish. “What we receive to easily, we esteem too lightly.” -Thomas Paine
God Bless,
Adam