Handling Life’s Challenges
South India grows a plant called “Glorious Superb” a type of tall lily. In the open field, it grows only a few feet tall and does not spread out very much. But plant it in the crowded lanes, surrounded by cactus and aloe (great, strong, assertive plants that choke others out), and it will flourish growing up to eight feet tall. Challenge it with thorns and thistles and it will assert itself masterfully.
The greater the challenge, the more beautiful its flowers, the more brilliant its colors, and the taller it grows.
We need those same built- in, survivor/over comer instincts.
For us, dark, desperate places become the place of vision.
The very things which are meant to break us, with God’s grace, will make us.
The message of the Bible helps us to transcend the moment of our circumstance, challenge to become better because of it.
God’s power is given to us to reverse life’s adversities.
When the world is at its worst, God is at his best.
When the world gives us greatest conflict, God gives us the greatest comfort.
When the world exhausts its remedy, God becomes our resource of faith.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.
Too many people today are just going from one crisis to another ─ always one step ahead of the devil.
Somehow we have to see ourselves as children of destiny. We are a part of what God is doing in the world- His great master plan.
- Our lives are not based on our circumstances.
- Our lives are not based on our adversities.
- Our lives are not based on our emotional status.
We base our lives on one simple fact- that if we are born again, filled with his holy spirit, living the spirit-filled life, then we know one thing- God is at work in us and what he has started, He will carry on to completion until the day Jesus reveals himself.
We understand God has placed us in a strategic position in his kingdom.
You either respond with position or punishment- you choose which.
Choose punishment and you get an offended spirit with a victim’s mentality.
When God permits a challenge, it is for a purpose; sometimes that purpose is greater than our understanding.
In all our adversities, God is shaping us, forming us, and bringing us into the place we can be of the ultimate good to him.
- There is no gold without the refiner’s fire.
- There is no steel without the heat of a blasted furnace.
- There is no diamond without the heat, pressure, and time.
- There is no statue without a hammer and chisel.
- There is no disciple without the potter’s wheel.
