Archive for March, 2009
Finding the Way Out of Trouble by Lindsay Roberts
We all face storms in life. But in hard times, God provides us with a way through the storm!
Life is filled with challenges. At times, we all experience difficulties and storms. In Hebrews 12:2, we learn that even Jesus had to endure the cross to reach the joy that was set before Him.
So, we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves enduring a hard season in life. But we shouldn’t give up either, because with God’s help, we can arrive safely on the other side of trouble.
One man who learned how to successfully make it through a storm is Job. The Bible says Job was a righteous, godly man. God loved him. Yet a time came when Job found himself in very hard circumstances, and he lost everything he had. Job made it through his storm, and that means we can too! I believe that if we find ourselves in the sort of mess Job was in, we can do what he did to get out of it.
Slam the door on fear
When hard times hit, Job said, “The thing that I have greatly feared has come upon me.” Fear is the opposite of faith. It focuses on the negative, instead of trusting in the promises in the Bible.
As Job found out, when we dwell on negative thoughts instead of God’s Word, we can actually open the door to fear. And if we let in fear, we can also let in Satan, who is watching for opportunities to steal, kill, and destroy.
Richard Roberts and I want you to know that if you’ve been living in fear, according to the Bible, you don’t have to stay there. You can change your fear to faith right now. Remember that no matter what you’re going through, God loves you! So don’t beat yourself up for being afraid or making mistakes. Confess your fear and your mistakes to God and repent. According to 1 John 1:9, God will be faithful and forgive you.
Evaluate your words
When we’re hurting, we may find ourselves saying, “God, where are You? Why have You deserted me? What have I done to deserve this?” But such negative talk can make us captive to our own words.
Job faced great discouragement, but his complaints didn’t solve his problems—and complaining probably won’t help us either. When we’re
in trouble, we need to evaluate what we’re saying and clothe our words with God’s Word.
We can say what God says. Instead of saying, “I feel like I’m going under,” we can say, “I believe God. I trust God. The joy of the Lord is my strength.” Consider switching from talking hate, bitterness, confusion, and doubt, to speaking God’s Word.
If you’ve been saying the wrong things, stop right now. Change what you’re saying about yourself and your situation, and line your words up with the Bible.
Don’t give up hope
In hard times, we may feel tempted to give up hope. Things got so bad for Job that even his own wife said, “Curse God and die. You’re so far down, you don’t have a chance.”
Job could have agreed with her, but instead, he chose to maintain his attitude of faith. He said, “Sorry, I will not curse God. I’m not giving up. I’ll love and serve God, no matter what.” Job refused to quit. He continued to trust God until his situation turned around.
If you’re going through a hard time right now, don’t give up! You may think you’ve lost everything, but if you haven’t lost God, then you haven’t lost everything. With God, there is always hope and a way out of trouble.
Prayer and forgiveness set you free
Job’s troubles were made worse by his friends, who criticized him rather than helping him. These friends hurt Job badly. As a result, he let his hurt feelings dominate him, making himself captive to the pain.
We expect our enemies to treat us badly, but when it’s our friends who hurt us, the wound can be deep. However, the Bible gives us the solution for dealing with hurt feelings. Matthew 5:44 tells us to pray for those who hurt us…not just our enemies, but friends too.
Job 42:10 nkjv says, And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Although it may be hard to pray for friends who have hurt us, Job’s experience shows us that prayer can set us free and bring us restoration.
Richard Roberts and I encourage you today to pray for those who have hurt you, no matter who they are. According to Acts 10:34, God is no respecter of persons, so we can ask Him to do for us what He did for Job. We can ask God to restore our losses, as He did for Job.
So today, no matter what you’re going through, I pray you don’t give up hope. Don’t dwell in fear or hurt. Don’t speak discouragement. But instead, reach out to God—Who loves you—and give your situation to Him. Trust Him, and allow Him to bring you safely through the storm in your life. Richard Roberts and I believe God is just the One that can do it.
Make Your Day Count by Lindsay Roberts
“You’re a nobody! You’ll never make it in life!” “You’re a failure, and you’re not good for anything!” “You can’t beat this situation, so you might as well just quit!”
Has anyone ever spoken words like that to you? Perhaps you’ve even thought them about yourself. We all face times when discouragement and doubt hit us like a ton of bricks.
When that happens, it may be hard for us to see a way out of our troubles. But Richard Roberts and I believe when we’re feeling down and facing defeat, that’s the very time we need to look to God and His promises to us. That’s when we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord (I Samuel 30:6).
Successful people don’t quit
There are countless people who have been told they were never going to amount to anything. Walt Disney had a learning disability that put him so behind in school, his teachers thought it would be best for him to drop out. Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein also struggled as students. Jay Leno was told he wasn’t good-looking enough to be a successful television star. As a young boy, Elvis Presley endured teasing from his classmates because he stuttered.
And have you ever heard of Bette Nesmith Graham? A divorced mother, Bette worked as a secretary to support herself and her son. She made frequent typing errors and needed a good way to fix them so she wouldn’t lose her job. Knowing that artists correct mistakes on canvas by simply painting over them, Bette decided to paint over her typing errors. She pulled out her electric mixer one day and concocted a formula that would cover her mistakes.
It wasn’t long before her friends wanted some of the corrective paint too, so Bette started selling it. Her home business gradually grew into a million-dollar company called Liquid Paper. Eventually, she sold her corporation for $47.5 million.
Just imagine where these people might have ended up if they had focused on their problems or agreed with what others said about them. They might never have achieved anything special. Instead, they kept pursuing their goals, and they all found success.
We can learn many truths from their lives:
• Don’t despise small beginnings.
• What looks like a setback may actually be a stepping stone.
• It doesn’t matter where you start; what matters is where you finish.
• You are not your diagnosis.
• Don’t live out man’s labels.
But perhaps the biggest lesson these people can teach us is that
if we want success in life, we can’t quit when discouragement comes along.
God doesn’t quit!
Quitting is certainly not in the plan of God for us as Christians! It is, however, exactly what our enemy, Satan, wants us to do. He wants us to give up and be defeated. So it shouldn’t surprise us that during difficult times, our enemy is right there to tell us we can’t make it. He wants us to think that we’ve failed for good, and that God can’t help us or use us anymore.
But Satan is a liar! And according to God’s Word, we are a divine work in progress. In Psalm 138:8
NKJV, we’re told, The Lord will perfect that which concerns [you]. No matter what your situation looks like right now, the story’s not over yet! God has promised us that He is perfecting all the things that concern us. Philippians 1:6 NIV tells us we can be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
The work God is doing in us and in our lives doesn’t stop when we find ourselves facing obstacles or struggling with discouragement. God’s continuing presence in our lives is something we can be confident of. He won’t stop helping us find ways to get on top of our situations. He’s not going to quit on us. And if God doesn’t quit on us, why should we quit on ourselves?
Hang in there for a happy ending
It’s true that not all of us will end up as scientists, inventors, musical stars, and talk show hosts. But we can all have success in what we do. No matter what our current situation may look like, we can find help in God’s Word. And we can trust God to be with us, perfecting the things that concern us and bringing them to completion.
If you are going through a hard time right now, Richard Roberts and I encourage you to focus on God and His promises to you. Remember, He wants you to be the head and not the tail. He wants you to have good success (Joshua 1:8). So keep your eyes on Him, don’t give up, and hang in there for the happy ending He wants the story of your life to have.