How to Handle Adversity
Tom Shrader opens a series on handling life's challenges by teaching that adversity can benefit us when we respond with proper perspective. He outlines six ways to consider God during difficult times: understanding who God truly is, reflecting on His creation, remembering His work in history, recalling His past faithfulness, trusting His current promises, and recognizing what He accomplishes through our trials. The teaching emphasizes that spiritual maturity comes through suffering and that maintaining focus on God's character provides stability amid changing circumstances.
“Suffering is your friend. Suffering is where we find out what you are really made of.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain (2002)
Recorded: June 06, 2002
Duration: 45 min
Themes: adversity, trials, suffering, faithfulness, perspective, trust, change, hope, facing difficult times, struggling with change, feeling overwhelmed, new believer, parent, experiencing loss, career challenges, seeking stability
Scripture: James 1:2-4, Job 2, Deuteronomy 29:29, Ecclesiastes 7:14, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Psalm 107:43, 1 Corinthians 10, 1 Samuel 12:24, Luke 12, Matthew 6, Job 37
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, providence, god's sovereignty, perseverance, christian growth, biblical worldview, divine purposes
Full Transcript
Starting a brand new series and you have the outlines in front of you, there should be plenty of them on your tables. How to stay afloat in a world that's circling the drain is the name of the series. Let me give you the eight sessions. Today, how to benefit from adversity. Session two, how to remove anxiety from your life. Session three, things you'll never hear in polite conversation. Four, and then through the rest, new financial strategies for a changing world, new career strategies, new relational strategies, new family strategies, new spiritual strategies.
Now there's a little bit of an odd thing in here. We only have seven sessions before we break because of a couple of different things. So we are not going to do how to remove anxiety from your life, which in and of itself produces anxiety in your life. I laugh when I say that.
The Reality of Change
Let me just spend a couple of minutes and set up the premise to the whole thing. The topic really talks about change more than anything. We first did this series in the mid-90s. In fact, you'll even see some of the comments in here as finances in the 80s versus finances in the 90s. In some sense, these principles are timeless.
I started when I had a long introduction, a couple of pages about change, and then I realized I don't think I need to sell you on that. I don't think I need to sell you that things are changing in so many ways. All I have to do is say 9-11 and you just see change forever.
But there's a lot of little subtle changes. Maybe they're so subtle that I was watching a show the other night on Hitler and Germany and the development of the Volkswagen. I thought, here's this archenemy and now I drive a Volkswagen. Here are these Japanese cars and we're driving them. Here we are with a strong ally, England, that we broke away. There's all just so much irony and change in the world.
Cycles in Business and Life
Then we bring it down to, let's say, business. We acknowledge that. We use a term like business cycles. We're in the real estate business. We would hear the term the real estate cycle. We know that properties cycle through, that for a while apartments will be hot and then retail will be hot. Retail is never really hot. Apartments will be hot and an office will be hot and land will be hot, but it moves through. It's a cycle. It's a trend.
We have them in our personal life. You've heard somebody say to you, I'm on a roll. In other words, things were pretty mediocre for a while and now it's really sped up. Now we're really moving along. Now things are picking up or things are really slow for me. Things are really slowed down and sometimes there are things we do, but oftentimes it's things that just happen.
I was listening Monday, I think it was, while I was driving around to K-Love and they were talking about one of the on-air personalities and if I got the story right, he and his wife and his three kids were just driving out over the weekend, just out driving, and somebody came over the middle line and his wife was killed. Two of his kids were killed. He's in critical condition. His son's in critical condition and really not much going on. I'm just driving along and boom, there it is. So things change.
One of the Greek philosophers said you can never step in the same river twice. The idea is that things are always flowing and changing. All of that said, there's something that never changes and sometimes we get into such a changing mode and changing world that we assume everything changes. Let's remember this, God never changes. God is changeless. I was at the bookstore today and one of the new books is saying if Christianity doesn't change, it will die. How do you change truth? And that's what you face.
Learning to Benefit from Adversity
Today the topic is how to benefit from adversity. Just a couple of observations that I make just from the title. The first one is that to benefit from it almost demands that I experience adversity. It almost means that I need to be in some of these situations. But it also means I need to learn from them.
One of the things that I have come to admire as perhaps the most important ingredient in evaluating whether I want to spend time with a person on an ongoing basis is coachability. Are they going to listen? Some people just go through adversity after adversity after adversity and it's just the same thing. You know that they're going to walk away and they're going to be back in 6, 9, 12 months. They're going to be back with another problem that's going to be just a variation of the same problem because they never get it right. They go from bad business to bad business to bad business to bad relationship to whatever it is.
Haven't you said that to your kids? Haven't you said that to somebody in the office? Maybe haven't people said it to you? Aren't you ever going to learn? It's coachability. We can just throw out all the wisdom in the world. If you're not willing to be coachable, then you're not going to benefit from it.
The Traditional Success Formula
When we talk about business cycle especially and we talk about life, we understand that we're results oriented and there's the bottom line. You've got your outlines in front of you. There's some blanks. I think the rest of the time I did it the way I'd like to do it. I went ahead and filled in the blanks for you, but I didn't this week. We're just talking about just ideas of how you get to the bottom line.
There's kind of what I would call in that first one the good times idea. Education plus energy plus ability plus time equals results. That's kind of the traditional model. You learn a lot, you work hard, you take care of yourself, you spend the time and you get results.
It presents most often in your life a sense of arrogance. You have what we fondly identify as a chump complex. You become very self-reliant, very critical, very judgmental. It tends to make you unapproachable. You're very low on the sympathetic scale. You just work hard, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We see that a lot in
Good times often reveal something about success models. We see people making money in good times who don't really have any substantial foundation - they're just there. The second model emerges during tougher times. It includes energy and education and ability and time, but we add this other component: luck.
I remember talking to a guy who said the real estate gods had smiled on him. This thing called luck. When new guys would come into the office, they would inevitably navigate their way around and try to talk to everybody and get advice. They'd eventually make their way to me and ask what I thought.
I'd say, "Well, here's what I think. You've got to know the marketplace and you've got to know your product and you've got to know how to deal with people and you've got to know the industry. But let me tell you what you really need - you just need a lot of breaks. You need a lot of luck." Now we understand biblically it's providence, but I'm just saying you need some breaks. None of those models are the complete reality.
The Real Success Formula
Here's reality: it's that third model. It's education plus energy plus ability plus time plus God. The reality is that you roll the dice and God determines the outcome. The world tends to emphasize all these other things, and we do too. Education is important. Ability is important. Rest and energy are important. Time is important. But ultimately, we need to include the most important factor in our life, which is God.
In the midst of adversity, you have your influences and your response. Number one: accept the influence of God in your circumstances. In Job chapter 2, Job's wife had just said, "Curse God and die." And Job said, "Should we accept the good from God, not the trouble?"
Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us something really basic, really simple: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God." God has revealed a great deal to us, but oftentimes, almost always, when a question starts with that word "why," we're stuck. We always struggle with the why part of those things.
Using Adversity to Increase Perspective
Here's the second thing regarding your response to those influences around you: in your downtime, use it to increase your perspective. That becomes the point for the rest of this lesson. Ecclesiastes 7:14 says, "When times are good, be happy. When times are bad, consider, think, ponder, meditate. Consider God has made one as well as the other." How should I respond to what the Lord is doing in my life?
In the midst of adversity, you may have looked at this topic and said, "Well, benefit from adversity - I don't need that. I don't have any adversity. I'm not going through adversity." What we always say is this too shall pass for you, because that's just the nature of life.
You're going to have a spouse that betrays you, or a staff member that usurps your authority, or you're going to have that trip to the doctor where He says, "There's a spot on this scan, we need to take a look." You're just going to have adversity. You're going to have air conditioners that break down - that's not even what we're talking about. You're going to have all this stuff in life.
Finding Stability Amid Circumstances
Are you a victim to the circumstances? When things are good, you're up, and when things are down, you're down. As circumstances go like this, does that mean that's how you're going to go - up and down like that? Is there a way to find stability in your life?
I find it frightening when I'm dealing with people and you're wondering who's going to come in the door. Is it going to be the roaring lion that's going to rip everything apart? Is it going to be the gentle lamb that just loves to laugh? What's it going to be? Why are you like that?
It seems to me that if there's anything we want to see in Christian behavior, there ought to be a constancy, a steadiness, a reliability, almost a predictability of how we respond. So He says, "Here's what I want you to do: consider God." That's what we're going to do - six things that are going to help you understand the reality around you.
Consider Who God Is and What He Is Really Like
Here's the first one: consider who God is and what He is really like. Psalm 107:43 says, "Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the Lord." I begin to think about God as He really is.
That presents a stumbling block for us because we are considering God and thinking about these things, but we're creating gods in our own image. It's impossible to go to a bookstore in the religious section or New Age section and not see someone, oftentimes a woman, who is there just perplexed, just stumbling.
I was in there not long ago. There was a girl there, about 18, and she was looking around with some book. I can't remember what it was now, but I knew it wasn't any good. I said, "Have you read that?" She said, "No, a friend of mine read it and said it's really good."
I said, "Really? What are you looking for?" She said, "I'm just trying to figure out life. I'm just trying to figure some stuff out." I said, "Well, here, come over here. Look at this." I gave her Lee Strobel's book, The Case for Christ.
She said, "Well, I don't know much about Jesus." I thought, "That's why you read the book," but I didn't say that. I said, "Well, I haven't read it, but I have some friends who did what your friend did. They've read this book and this book has changed their life. I do know this: understanding who Christ is will change your life."
The last time I saw her, she was walking toward the checkout to buy it. Solomon asked for wisdom, got it, and tells us about life in the book of Ecclesiastes.
In Ecclesiastes 12:13, he closes out his assessment of life. He says this: "Here's the conclusion. When all things have been heard, it is this: Fear God and keep His commandments. And that applies to every person." See, all of a sudden, I have to understand who God really is.
I have a bunch of stuff to read to you. It does not matter what you think God really is. You can be dealing with the image of God and not really God. If you understand who God is, you don't necessarily talk to a human or a neighbor—they could give you bad information. Just go to the Bible. That's where I'm going to understand who God is.
America's Confusion About God
We're confused as a nation. This is George Barna's latest research. Let me just read you some of it. I just want you to get a sense here. Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that the Bible teaches God helps those who help themselves. Thirty-nine percent of Americans believe that while Jesus was on earth, He committed sins. The Holy Spirit is a symbol of God's power, but is not a living entity—sixty-one percent of people believe that. After Jesus was crucified and died, He did not return to life—forty percent believe that.
Here's just some general things about our life. I'll give you the conclusion up front. The conclusion is we're very confused. We believe the Bible, but we don't believe what it teaches. It's a very strange thing.
Personally responsible to tell others about your religious beliefs—forty-eight percent said that's the case. The devil or Satan is not a living being, just a symbol of evil—fifty-eight percent. So you have fifty-eight percent saying that Satan's not real. Sixty-one percent believe the Holy Spirit's not real. Interesting.
A person, if they're generally good and do enough good things, they'll earn heaven—fifty-one percent believe that. All people experience the same outcome after death regardless of what they believe—forty-one percent believe that. Here's an interesting one: there are some crimes or sins that people commit that God cannot forgive—thirty-one percent of people believe that.
It's important that you experience spiritual growth—eighty-eight percent of people said that. These are just people walking down the street now. Still trying to figure out the purpose and meaning of life—forty-three percent said that. It's important to please God, in fact more important than to be successful—seventy-eight percent said that. They're lying there. All religions teach basically the same—forty-seven percent said that.
That's what's around you. We're all confused.
The Practical Power of Understanding God
Here's what we want you to consider all the time, but especially in the midst of adversity: consider what God is really like. And here's what I want you to see. In a way, in retrospect, it's kind of been a crusading point for me for years. That is this: theology is not an abstract study that has no practical purpose. When I understand who God is, I'm going to understand the meaning and the purpose of life. The great questions of who am I and why am I here and where am I going? Those are not that tough. We can answer those. We can answer those for you today.
All of a sudden, when I understand who God really is, its practical application is enormous.
Stonewall Jackson's Faith in Action
I was just finishing this book the other night. It's on Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall Jackson is magnificent—I don't know how much you know about him. He's a fascinating guy to study. If you were going to read a book on Stonewall Jackson, it's actually kind of a big book. Don't let it scare you away. The guy who wrote it, I can't remember his first name. I want to say Robert—I'm not positive. But the last name is Robertson. You can find it in most bookstores. It's a big book, a recent biography, pretty much kind of a definitive type work on Jackson.
Stonewall Jackson is an absolutely fascinating guy. When we were back in Washington and we're driving, it's September 10th, getting ready for 9-11—we didn't understand it at the time. We're driving along and I said to Susan, "Wow, this is where Stonewall Jackson died. Let's go in there."
Stonewall Jackson, I'll spend a second on it, was actually in the middle of a battle. His forces are a little bit confused. He's trying to ride up to assess the situation. He rides in front of his forces and is actually shot by his own guys. They don't know it, obviously. They bring him back and he's shot in a couple of places. They have to take his arm off. They take him to this house, and it's in this house that he dies.
So I said, "Susan, we've got to stop and see that." And she said, "Oh, absolutely. We wouldn't want to miss that. God forbid we wouldn't see where Stonewall Jackson died." So we go in and there's two rangers there. We got this one guy—he's a really good guy. He said, "You know, just go on upstairs and just look around." So we're up there and he comes in and he said, "That's the actual bed. That's the bed that was here when Jackson died."
I said, "Do you know much about Jackson's religious beliefs?" And he said, "Oh, he was a staunch Calvinist." He said, "Do you know what that is?" And I said, "I think I do." And he said, "He's a staunch Calvinist and it transcended—" and this is now a U.S. park ranger—"and it transcended everything for him. It gave definition to all that he did. In many ways, it made him the general and the fighter that he was because he had such extraordinary confidence in God and providence."
Interesting. There's nothing that I know of that's religious about the author of this book, but he's recording the end of Jackson's life. The chaplain comes in. Jackson is now in this house we were in and he's laying there.
And it looks as though he well may die. The minister comes in and the author writes this paragraph: "Softly, Jackson comforted the minister. The will of God had been to take his arm from him. There is always a reason for what God did. It may seem unreasonable now, but later we'll all learn God's wisdom."
It goes on and it gets a little more serious. Lee's concerned now about Jackson, and that's where Lee utters that incredible saying that's so popular: "He may have lost his left arm, but I've lost my right arm." He sends this guy who was a Jackson aide down to him. His name is Smith, Jimmy Smith, if I remember. And Jackson says to Smith, "Many would regard my injuries as a great misfortune. I regard them as one of the great blessings of my life."
Smith came in and said to him, "All things work together for them who love God." Jackson said, "Yes, that's right. In fact, that's absolutely right."
Jackson's Final Days
His condition begins to deteriorate. He drifts in and out of consciousness. His wife is now there. He comes to, and he says, "My darling, you must cheer up and not wear a long face. I love cheerfulness and brightness in my sick room. My darling, you are very much loved. You're one of the most precious wives in the world."
He comes back to consciousness when he looks around and he said, "I see from the number of physicians that you think my condition is dangerous, but I thank God if it's His will, I am ready to go. I am not afraid to die. I am willing to abide by the will of my heavenly Father." He called for the chaplain so he could discuss theological issues with them.
On the next night, his wife comes in and he asks her to read some psalms to him. He begins to breathe rather heavily. They sing a hymn around him. It's clear that the end is coming. The doctor says to his wife, "The end is coming. Thomas can't live through the day."
She composes herself and she said, "Did you know the doctors say that very soon you'll be in heaven? Do you not feel willing to die?" He says, "I prefer it." "Well, before the day closes you'll be with the blessed Savior in glory."
The Practical Application of Theology
See, that's the practical application of theology. Jackson wasn't just kidding himself. We're not just going through these motions. There is a God that I can know in a personal way. And if I know Him in a personal way, heaven is my destination.
And while I have some desire to be here, I'll try to make it as personal as I can. I would absolutely love three weeks from tomorrow night to be walking Haley down the aisle. But I've got to tell you, I'd rather be in heaven. And it's not that three weeks from tomorrow night wouldn't be terrific. But we've become so hung up on this world that I fear we've missed the anticipation of what's really, really, really significant.
I remember asking a friend one time, I said, "Will you read this book?" And he said, "Tell me about it." I said, "It's really a good book." He said, "I don't read good books." I said, "Really?" And he said, "Oh yeah, Tom. I can't waste time reading good books because there's so many great books that need to be read."
And I think that's how we are. We're taking all of this and we're thinking this is the end. So we cling to everything so hard and so tight that our muscles are trembling and we're holding on to temporary things that by definition we can't retain.
Getting Eternal Perspective
How do you get that perspective? I hope that doesn't sound like passive resignation to you. That's an understanding that this is all temporary. And the only reason that it has eternal consequences is that our souls are involved in it. That's it.
In the midst of adversity, you should consider what God is really like, who He really is. Here's the second thing: Consider what God has done in creation. It may sound odd to you.
God's Questions to Job
It's Job 37. Listen to this, Job: "Stop and consider God's wonders." And then God launches. And God's off. And He says, "Job, let me ask you something. How does the eagle fly? Where do we keep the snow, Job? Do you know? Got any clue, Job? How do we get this hail?" And read it. It's just question after question after question.
It starts with Job reaching a point of frustration where he says, "God, I've got something I want to ask you. God, I want to ask you this." And He says, "First, let me ask you a question." And God asks all these questions to Job. And finally, God says, "Job, what was the question?" And Job says, "Never mind."
Think about God's creation. We can blow this off too quick.
The Difference Between Creating and Building
We're playing golf at the Raven a couple of weeks ago. My golf is pathetic right now, by the way. And we're on about the fourth or fifth hole. And I'm talking to a guy. And the guy I'm with, he's become a really good friend. And we're talking. He said, "This is really a pretty place." I said, "It's incredible. Look around you." Because the land is absolutely flat. Absolutely flat. And I said, "They have moved tons and tons and tons of dirt to create this course."
We're going around. I'm driving home. And I thought, they didn't create a course. They moved dirt. God creates. We build. God creates. They didn't make the dirt. You see? And that sounds like a subtle little difference. That's gigantic.
I'm on the phone today. As my day started, talking to my brother. He said, "What time is it?" And I said, "I don't know, 5:40 or something." And he said, "Is the sun up out there?" Because he's back in the Midwest. And I said, "Yeah, I mean, the sun's up. We're not on daylight savings time. So we see this whole cycle. We're not screwed up like you guys. We see the whole cycle of how this goes all the way through."
And I remember driving to Tucson and I remember times I would just be in awe of God's creation. I would be down around Casa Grande. And let me just tell you, if you're in awe at Casa Grande, it's a pretty amazing creation that you're looking at. But you would see the moon over here, setting over these mountains. You'd see the oranges...
God created this. Think about it. There was nothing. This might be an amazing structure, but we got boards and wood and stuff and we started. There was nothing. God said, let there be light. There was light. He created. Paul tells us that when we look at creation, we see His invisible power, His attributes. You begin to see His might, His glory, His power, His love. It's an awesome thing.
Sometimes you can get so focused in the midst of adversity, so focused on what you're going through that you lose track of all the stuff around you. That's the problem with adversity. You begin to see the whole world as a mirror and everything is, what about me? What about me? How's it going to affect me? What about me? Think about His creation.
Think of What God Has Done in History
Here's a third thing. Think of what God has done in history. Paul writes to some believers—they would have been Greeks, but there may well have been some Jews sprinkled in among them in Corinth. He writes this in 1 Corinthians 10: "For I don't want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses, into the clouds, into the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink." He's talking here about the Exodus. He's talking about the wandering in the desert.
He said, "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased and they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us that we should not crave evil things as they crave them." There is something extraordinarily powerful, I think, about history. Thomas Jefferson said this: if you don't know history, you don't know how to read the future.
There was a story the other day and I didn't have time to get it. They were talking about some comments on a seniors in high school history test. I only got two of them. The question was, what year was Abraham Lincoln president? And one kid had answered 1910. The other one, and see if this doesn't strike you as perhaps ironic and sad, define the Holocaust. What was the Holocaust? And the kid's answer was, a Jewish holiday. That's why something like Saving Private Ryan has such benefit because it forces you to look back.
The Blessing of Our System
We really are in a magnificent country. I happen to have a little bit of a minority view. I don't think the American people are all that hot. That's just my personal view. I don't mean to offend you because I am one too. But what makes these people here great are not the people, it's the system.
You give me ten refugees off a boat today and in five years you're going to have three restaurants and four apartment buildings. And they're in a boat flopping around. So it wasn't a problem with them, it's a problem with the system, my friend. You're in a system here that allows people to do great things. You're in a terrific system. And every day we just whittle away at the system because we don't have any sense of what the system's about. We just let a little bit of it go all the time.
Is it a perfect system? Obviously not. Has it got some problems? Obviously. But you need to know history.
Consider What God Has Done for You in the Past
The fourth thing is, consider what God has done for you in the past. 1 Samuel 12:24: "But be sure to fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. Consider what great things He has done for you."
Do you understand this? Let's make sure we get this square. You were at war with God. You were a sinner. You weren't able to do anything spiritually good. You did what you wanted to do always, and that was always sin. And in the midst of this God reaches down and saves you. If you're a Christian today, you're a Christian because of the work God did in your life.
Can you contemplate that at all? In other words, here you were. Make sure you understand it. You're just moving along and you're heading down a self-centered life. Even if you did good things, you did them only so somebody would look at you and say, wow, look at the good things they did. Your motives were always wrong. They were always imperfect. You always sin. That's what the Bible teaches us. God comes along, rips out your heart of sin and gives you a new heart.
You're in the middle of adversity. Do you think that's important to remember?
God's Economic Provision
Look at just how He's provided. Look at how He's provided economically. We do a lot of whining and moaning and complaining, but most of us are living lives beyond anything we ever dreamt.
I had a guy come up this morning. This is a terrific example, because I was talking about this, and he said, "You know, I had half a million dollars in some CDs and some stuff come due the other day. Maybe they were bonds, something. And to get the federal insurance, I had to put them in three different institutions." He said, "I was complaining, driving from place to place." And he said, "What a jerk." Isn't that true? He never dreamt it.
One of our staff guys, they're all in the process of doing testimonies, and this is the oldest guy on our staff. He's the head of our maintenance department. He said his mom and dad took in his grandmother. There were seven kids, so there were ten of them, and they lived in an 800 square foot house. He said, "Right now we're retired, my wife and I, and we have 1400 square feet." And he said, "I don't remember ever thinking, gee, this is crowded." He said, "I remember days when I'd have to get up early, I'd have to step over bodies to get out the door." But he said, "This never struck me." Isn't that incredible?
Four years ago, on our anniversary, Susan and I are flying to Alaska. And I said, "This is incredible. Right now, we're in the air going to Alaska. My parents are in the air going to Europe. My brother is in the air heading to the West Coast. This is incredible." And my dad used to take us over to the Quad Cities airport for breakfast on Sunday, and we were thrilled if we could see an airplane.
I remember as a boy, airplanes were just something I'd see flying overhead. It never occurred to me that I'd ever be able to get on one. Now, next Thursday I have to go to Houston, and I'd rather die than get on that airplane. What a hassle.
About 25 years ago, my dad was visiting—he was about the age I am right now. We were out in the East Mesa, at about Baseline and Higley, where there was nothing but orange groves then. I noticed my dad drifting away in thought. I asked what he was thinking about, and he said, "When I was a kid, periodically we could get an orange. I knew oranges grew on trees, but I never dreamed I'd see one."
Isn't that simple? Sometimes we absolutely forget what God has done for us. We're so busy trying to let Him know what He needs to do for us tomorrow or what He messed up yesterday that we simply forget what He's done. We forget spiritually what He's done. We tend to forget economically.
The Blessing of Basic Health
The fact that most of you, not all but most, could get up and walk in here today under your own power—do you understand what a blessing that is? I didn't until this week.
I was in the gym Monday, and I don't know why, but I woke up Tuesday so stiff I cannot fathom what I could have possibly done. I didn't do anything different. From my waist down, I ached like mad. I let everybody know Tuesday and yesterday about how much I hurt and how nobody's ever really hurt quite like this. Nobody's ever had pain like this.
I got up this morning and stood in the shower, just letting that water hit all over me. I thought, "You know what? I don't remember Monday morning when I got up saying, 'Hey God, I just want to thank You that I feel so good this morning.'" Sometimes I need all of that adversity just to remember the very basic things.
Finding Spiritual Purpose in Pain
Here's where we get really spiritual. When the pain comes, it's to wake up and say, "God, thank You for this pain, because You gave me this pain for a reason. I want You to use it for Your glory. Don't let me dwell on the pain. Let me dwell on Your glory and what comes in it."
Two more things deserve great time, but I'm not going to give it to them simply because we talk about them so much. One of them we talked about recently.
Consider What God Has Promised Today
Number five: consider what God has promised to do today. Consider the ravens. Remember how we looked at this last week? This is from Luke 12, but it's the cross-reference from Matthew 6: "Consider the ravens. They don't reap or have store rooms or barns, yet God feeds them."
The whole point in the Sermon on the Mount is don't worry about what you're going to eat. Don't worry about what you're going to wear. Don't be worrying about this. Consider first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all this other stuff will happen. All this other stuff will take care of itself. You don't have to worry about these things.
This is not something that says you don't need to work, plan, or save. What we're saying is you don't need to worry. These things ought not be the consuming thing in your life. If you've got a job and a 2,500 square foot house but the income won't get there, then just move to 1,200 square feet. It's not the end of the world. If you don't have enough money to eat filet, then eat hot dogs. What does it matter?
We're not satisfied with God meeting our needs. We're satisfied in demanding Him to meet our expectations.
Review: Five Antidotes to Worry
I gave you these five things. Let me give them to you again quickly. Two weeks ago, the antidote to worry—some of you note takers have them, I'm sure.
Number one: remember things are temporary. You're burning up all sorts of brain cells and anxiety on stuff that ultimately doesn't matter and won't last. You ought to just write "stupid" right by that as you do it today, and I'll do it too. But we're going to do it.
Number two: God's in control. Sometimes I pick up the paper and say, "Look at this Middle East. It's out of control." No, it isn't. It's out of our control and beyond our control, but it's not out of God's control.
Here's the third thing: God forgives His children's sin. There was a statistic in that Barna report that was really significant. Roughly a third of people in this country believe there are sins you can commit that God won't forgive you.
The Logic of Unforgiveness
Think about that, because I'll tell you my reaction there. If I've committed a sin that I don't think God's going to forgive, then I don't care about the rest of my life. If I'm going to hell anyway, let's bring on the booze and have a ball. If I'm going, let's get all we're going to get right here, because this is as good as it's going to get.
Think about the logic of that. Think about a third of the people saying, "God can't forgive this sin." Think of the guilt. That manifests itself in all sorts of ways—pride, judgment. All of a sudden you have to think you're something. You make all sorts of stupid compensations for that.
God forgives the sin of His children. God does not forgive all sin that's ever been committed. If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you aren't forgiven. You are guilty. If you die, you'll spend eternity in hell, separated from God.
Here's the fourth thing: all things work together for good for God's kids. We keep emphasizing "for God's kids." If you're here and you're not a Christian, things don't work together for good for you. They don't work out here very well, and they certainly don't work out in eternity.
Here's the last thing—
Unchanging God as Our Foundation
It seems so odd. God is changeless. Why would you have that there? Because that's the way He always is. That's the way He's dealt with His people. That's the way He'll continue to deal with His people.
Here's the last thing, the sixth thing. Consider what God can do for you through adversity. Consider what God will do for you through adversity.
Finding Joy in Trials
James chapter 1, verse 2: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials." That is supernatural right there. If we wrote this in the natural, here's what we'd say: "Consider it pure hell, my brothers, when you encounter various trials." And we're talking here about real serious trials. "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials." That's James 1:2.
In James 1:1, James says, "I'm writing to the twelve tribes who are scattered all over." These are people who have been converted who are now out—some suffering for their faith, some running from persecution, some running to proclaim the truth—all in the midst of great suffering and hardship. He says, "You count it as joy." Here's why: because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance, and endurance, when it's finished, will make you mature.
The most universal statistic of that Barna report was 88% of the American people thought they wanted to be spiritually mature. That's a fascinating thing. Here's what James says: if you want to be spiritually mature, then you have got to suffer. "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." Why? Because the testing of your faith—see, in the midst of the suffering, we're going to find out what you're all about.
The Power of Suffering to Transform
I think I've mentioned in here before, we've got a girl in our church. She's 25, I believe. She's had all sorts of diseases all of her life, all sorts of circulatory diseases, and they can't get them fixed. They are at a point right now where they are just systematically cutting off limbs. They cut off from her knee on down the other day, and she's just got problems. And she's in extraordinary, excruciating pain.
And yet her emails and being with her are so uplifting. It's not denial of the pain. You know what she wanted all of her life? Just to affect people for Christ. I don't think this is how she would have selected to do it, but she's doing it. Suffering is your friend. Suffering is where we find out what you are really made of.
Learning Through Adversity
I was listening to something the other day on Bobby Jones, the golfer. And Jones made just an interesting comment in passing. He said this: "I never learned much from a match I won. Never learned much. When I went out and just knocked it down." Why? Well, if I'm knocking it down the road and making the putts and I win, I tend to say, "You know what? I'm a heck of a golfer. Oh, you ever seen a golfer like me? Woo!" But when I go out and I get waxed, when I go out and I get beat 3 and 4, all of a sudden I'm saying, "Something's not right. What did I do wrong? Do you remember back on 12? I tried to hit that shot. I don't own that shot." Never learned much from a match I won.
The counterpart to that for us is that you just don't tend to learn much when things are going well. Hey, go into a sales office. This is so practical. Go into a sales office, 50 salesmen. You can pick out the top 5 salespeople. You look around, they're the ones going like this: "When's this going to be over? I don't have time for a lot of meetings. Meetings are where minutes are kept and hours are wasted. And I don't have time for things like this. I have top 5. I don't have time for a salesman. I had to be running the salesman."
On the other hand, you get the bottom 5, you can spot them. They're writing everything. "Good morning." "Good morning." They're going to make you think they're listening because they don't want to get fired. The top 5 aren't coachable, generally.
The Great Athlete's Secret
I think to a large degree, and I'm going in athletics here, I think to a large degree, that's what makes a great athlete a great athlete. There's a lot of really good athletes, but the great athlete, what separates them, other than steroids, what separates them is they're constantly studying their craft. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but listen to Tony Gwynn talk about hitting.
The Pattern for Surviving Life's Storms
In the midst of adversity, you benefit by considering God—considering who He is and what He's like, considering what He's done in creation, considering what He's done in history, considering what He's done in your past, considering what He's promised to do today, and considering what He will do for you through adversity.
If you're in the middle of trials, you're in the middle of tough, tough situations, you're trying to figure stuff out, do you see a pattern here? Consider God. Think about Him. Is this the summer where you're just going to take time and figure out who you are? You don't study you, you study Him. When you understand who God is, all of a sudden, the rest of life starts to fall into place of its own accord.
Our View of God is Too Small
You live at a time, and I'm just telling you, where it's on the radio, it's on television, it's in most churches, where we have a view of God that's way too small. If there's anything about God we don't understand, we throw it out. Does it make sense that God, who created this, in communicating to the people who...