Adversity has no time limit, it either lasts for a very short time or span across years, likewise the scope of an adversity can have little effect or big effect on one's life. There is only one key to enduring such periods of life, and that key is strength.
It's also not strange that long or drawn out periods of adversity can create apathy. The apathy can be against God, against other people who are perceived as not being supportive or even against oneself. Once again, the key to avoiding apathy is strength.
The strength am referring to is that which can only be obtained by close fellowship with God, spending time with God on a daily basis gives us strength to shift focus from the big problems, troubles or adversity to the greatness of God and the ability of God to do the impossible.
Nobody wants to fail in the face of trials and temptations, yet failure becomes inevitable when our strength is small. Proverbs 24:10 "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small"
Obtaining strength gives us the ability to wait on God, develop godly character and be able to endure trials. It gives us hope that our time of salvation is near even though we might not see any physical change and that is what faith is all about.
The story being shared today is all about adversity and the struggles we go through. It offers a fresh perspective that is illuminating. To me, it takes strength to admit such fears and limitations. The word of God is always true and each person must discover the truth in it as it applies to our situations.
To Do: Cast your mind back to characters in the bible and on how they received strength for their own journey. Examples are Joseph, Gideon, Elisha, Jesus.
Pushing through my season of suffering
By Andrea Logan WhiteJesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
JOHN 19:30
I began to write Perfectly Unfinished while thrown into a season of suffering unlike any I had ever faced. David and I had unexpectedly lost two very precious loved ones within just a few months of the release of God’s Not Dead. Only four months before its release, David’s mother died suddenly. Then our beloved Pure Flix partner and mentor Russell Wolfe, producer of God’s Not Dead, succumbed to ALS at age fifty, just two months after the movie’s release. We had been so sure that God was going to heal him on earth, yet he took him to heaven instead. Heartrending. These sudden losses at a time when we were celebrating God’s surprise gift of such success stirred the still lingering grief over two others who had been taken in their prime just a few years before. David’s dad had died tragically seven years earlier, meaning that neither of his sweet parents who had served the Lord as Mennonite pastors ever got to witness the success of their son’s movie. And David’s cousin, only nineteen years old and very close to us, died tragically in his sleep a mere four years ago.
On top of the deep grief both David and I experienced, I’ve been suffering the past few years with relentless physical ailments and have been diagnosed with several frightening, vague, and elusive illnesses: fibromyalgia, acute migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, a genetic disease called porphyria, Lyme disease, and a condition called POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), in which the resting heart rate is very high and blood pressure extremely low, causing one to faint. Housebound for three months with this condition when I started writing my book, I had fears of dying and leaving my precious children motherless. And though I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on mainstream medicine, chiropractors, herbalists, and endless other medical options, I’ve had adverse reactions to more treatments and medications than I can count.
In light of these overwhelming symptoms, I’ve been striving to find a healthy balance of rest, nutrition, physical care, stress care, therapies, medications, tests and more tests, research, and of first and foremost, the Word of God and prayer, only to have to confess I haven’t been able to find anything close to the healthy balance of such things. This has left me deeply discouraged.
In the year of writing my book, at times I’ve been too ill to drive, been unable to walk, lost vision in one eye temporarily, and even been completely bedridden at times. So I turned to some well-loved sermons from preachers of the gospel, but came up disappointed in my lack of faith. The apostle Paul writes, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV). But truth be told, when I literally could not walk, I was filled with panic, not faith.
I often sat there completely alone (David was at home with the kids), and I did not have joy in the midst of suffering. I wanted to know why I was suffering so badly. I saw no signs of heavenly mercy.
Well, except for one thing. I met people there. People who were also in pain or fear or despair. I’m the kind of person who tends to strike up conversations. For instance, there was an older gentleman who just needed to have someone listen to his laundry list of medical issues. Making him laugh and finding a few things in common about our experiences relaxed him as he waited. And there was a young mom with her little boy in the ER one day. Her wide eyes and shaking voice told me her fear was powerful. Her little boy lay limp on her shoulder, hair plastered with sweat to his forehead. We talked about kids and how hard it is to watch them suffer. How frightened we get. We both felt less alone. And then there was a teenage girl in an office all by herself. I guessed why she was there alone and stepped in to be the calming adult for a few minutes while she waited to see a doctor.
I may be exposing myself as a little dense here, but it took me a few times (not that I recommend making the ER a habitual destination) before I caught on to the fact that I was seeing heavenly mercy at work in those conversations, but it didn’t look like the kind of mercy for which I’d been pleading. Our God is most unpredictable.At least one of our children has been ill every single week for over seven months. Between them and me, we’ve been in and out of emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, and blood-drawing labs more times than I want to count. I’ve prayed the verse “by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5), yet have found myself disappointed that illness, rather than healing, seems to dominate our home. I’ve prayed, spoken the Word of God, repented, rebuked, and had others pray for us—yet the onslaught of illnesses continues.
I know full well that countless people are dealing with far worse, and they would gladly accept my little list of woes in exchange for their own devastating circumstances. Terminal illness. A marriage falling apart. A son or daughter maimed in combat. A loved one arrested. An injury suffered. Victimization by some violent act. The list goes on and on. The last thing any of us need is a “who’s got it worse” comparison, for there is always someone who does have it worse!
So here’s the challenge I’ve been facing. While working on my book, these struggles have seemed all-consuming to me. In recent months, faced with one painful circumstance after another, I’ve been genuinely surprised (and downright discouraged) to discover how often I feel just as lost, just as anxious, just as insecure, just as unqualified, and just as frustrated as I did at 2:00 a.m. one morning as I watched my son Everson’s temperature climb—hands shaking, heart pounding. But I kept hiding it all under the veneer of the “successful” Christian life, whatever that means. I admit it: I’ve been profoundly disappointed in my spiritual responses and lack of knowing or comfort from God in my travails of life.
I don’t know how this season of trial is going to end, or if it will end. Will it end in deliverance? Healing? Or more suffering? When I get to the end of this period, will I hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” reverberating over the loudspeaker? (That seems highly unlikely, given how I’ve been struggling. How could I deserve the words “well done”?) Or will I come up terribly short? (I feel like I already have!)
Will I be cut from the part I am playing in God’s story? (Isn’t that what I deserve?) Fired? Blacklisted? Surely there are far more qualified people to write a message—spiritual grown-ups—rather than the uncertain child I feel myself to be these days.
It’s not that I hadn’t expected more trials and difficulties. I get it that those are always a part of life on this earth. But I did not expect my responses to result in the same old struggles.
As I see it, feeling as confused and defeated as I have been, I had a choice to make about my book. Either I would choose not to write it, or I would push through it anyway and see where God took me. I’ve pushed through storm after storm ever since I’ve been saved. How do I stay close to God through such things? Where has this series of storms been coming from? Where will it lead?
I only know that quitting would ensure my defeat. Pushing through at least holds some possibility of my discovering the truth God wants me to know. So the book I’ve actually written is quite different from the one I’d planned to write. Because I’ve decided that rather than write from what I’ve already learned, I will write instead from what I’m struggling to discover. Rather than writing from victory, I’m writing from the battlefield, exposing where I’m defenseless.
Why? Because pretending I’m living in victory when I’m not will just lead me deeper into defeat. Life is hard, and I despise the veneer of faith-talk portraying that life is all good when much of it is quite bad. I can’t stand frauds, so sometimes I’m so real that I walk away from conversations, thinking, Hmm, why did I just share that? I’ve been told by some that I am way too transparent. But I believe, humbly, that not pretending and being honest are gifts God has given me to help others. We truly heal from each other’s stories. We can connect with each other when we confess our unanswered questions and weaknesses.
We are defenseless against our enemy if we are living a lie.
There is much I do not know, but of this I am sure: I cannot win this battle alone. I’ve done it alone—did it for years, in fact—to disastrous results.
I’m not going back to alone!
I’m going forward with Jesus.
And I will tell you why. Because at the risk of sounding like an old hymn, I once was lost. Wholly, desperately, devastatingly lost. I’d lived my life my way with no personal connection whatsoever to the God of the universe—the God who made me. And when finally, at the end of myself, I cried out in desperation, “God, if you’re really there, show yourself to me”—he did. Dramatically. Personally. On the spot.
And then he began to change me.
Simply put, even though I understand the principle that God is the finisher of my faith, I’m not as “finished” as I believe I “should be” by now.
So I decided to see what God has to say about being finished.
And since not knowing how the scene finally ends tends to cause us the most angst, I’m looking at the ultimate final scene. Jesus, hanging on the cross in the midst of an agonizing and torturous death, spoke three final words before he breathed his last: It is finished. Jesus finished his work. Speaking words so critically important that he chose to declare them as his final words from the cross.
We may not yet have a clear understanding of what “it is finished” means for us and our struggle. I don’t yet. But we do know that Jesus declared it to be so. So let’s agree that we will struggle together to discover the power these words can have in our lives today.
https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2017/09/pushing-through-my-season-of-suffering/
The above excerpt was published by Zondervan Nonfiction as free content.
I Fly by Sinach Joseph
No comments:
Post a Comment