When we are facing struggles, problems, trials and all of those not so fun circumstances, the last words that will come to our mind would be "pure joy". What is so joyful when we are on trial? if anything, that would be unpleasant, uncomfortable, painful and not fun. But yet, the Bible teaches us to consider those moments as pure joy. Consider does not mean it is what it is, but to think outside the box, to fix your mind on a different approach, to see things on a different perspective/angle.
"We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance"
(Romans 5:3).
And then there is another verse who basically says the same thing; to rejoice in the suffering moments! What?? How could I rejoice when my child is very ill? How could I consider it pure joy when my husband just left me for another woman? How could I rejoice when I just get fired from my job? How could God asked me to do such things and if He is a good God, then He would never let anything bad happen to me (or the world). The list of questions, doubts, denials, anger and unanswered questions will always occur and will never end, until we fully understand the power of rejoicing in the midst of our problems, the power of laughing in the midst of an unhappy moments, the power of letting go and let God, the power of faith because there is nothing that you could do as a human being to change it.
It is easier to say it than done it and I am still struggling with that everyday of my life. I am a Christian who loves and believes in God, but when someone treat me unjustly, when I am facing problems, death, sickness, unfairness, etc, I have my "Why God?" moment and I also have my denial moment as well as my complaining and self pity's moments. But, the denial, complaining and self pity's moments do not get me anywhere and those stuff never solved my problems, sheesh, if anything, they make my problems even bigger, complicated and not to mention I am more depressed when I let those thoughts and attitude enter my heart and mind.
This world will never be perfect because of everything and everyone in it are not perfect and therefore the sickness, poverty, famine, war, fight, unjust, etc, will exists simply because we are human with our own pride, strength and weakness and we used it without wisdom, love or compassion for others.
We, human, tend to keep everything for ourselves, our selfishness defeats our own humility or compassion toward others, may it be for other human, animals, plants. We killed animals so that we could have tasty foods, even though we would be fine without eating animals. We destroyed our own environment in the name of comfort and survival. We declared war against other nations in the name of power, politic, religion and wealth. We neglect our own body to live a healthier lifestyle and then we got sick. We failed as a parent to be the role model for our kids, we failed as a child to obey our parents. We failed on a lot of things...yet we blamed God for everything that went wrong in our lives.
However, there are times when we did our best to prevent bad things from happening and they still exists. There are things that is beyond our control and there are things that God allowed us to experience so that we could help other people who are facing the same situation.
There are also things that God allowed us to experience because He wants us to experience His love, power, grace, miracle and blessing. When the doctor told us a long time ago that my dad only had a couple of months to live due to his liver failure/damage, we were devastated, but God allowed it to happen because He then showed us that He healed my dad completely and He is still alive until today.
When my uncle fell deep into the drug addiction's world, we thought he would die. Then, God took my grandpa to heaven and at that moment, my uncle turned his life around to Jesus and he is living the best life today. It takes a death of my grandpa to save my uncle's life. But, we are rejoicing for his life and yes, we mourned when my grandpa died, but we all going to die anyway. Grieve, cry and feel the pain, then get back up and live the rest of your life with gladness. Just because someone die, it does not mean that you must die either. Their job on this earth is finished, they are resting now. Our jobs are not finished yet, so we better live our lives and cherish the moments of being alive.
Consider it a joy or rejoice when we face trials speak about faith, hope, and love. Life happens, whether we like it or not. Surprises comes and go, whether it is a good or bad ones. We could not control everything and we could not control what other people will do to us, we could try to prevent certain things from happening, but everyone of us has a free will to do whatever we want. Some made wise choices, some made bad choices and it caused pain to themselves and other people.
Faith does not mean everything will always be O.K., faith means possibility, faith means ability, faith means chance, faith means you are not alone. God promised to be with us until the end of time (Matthew 28:20) which simply means, we will never going through it all alone. He was there before you were born, He is still here with you and will always be there for you until well..forever. He comes, he stays and will never leaves..HA!
TRIAL => TESTING => PERSEVERANCE => MATURITY => TRIUMPH
The power of training to become a champion!
Suffering produces endurance, perseverance and patient. Every athlete or successful people do not just get it, they were going through a LOT of pain, gain, learning, defeating, winning moments. They were going through a hardcore training that requires strength and suffering along the way, for their own good. The stronger you are, the better chance you have to become a champion.
Trial exists to produce endurance, we persevere so that we could be stronger to face life, growing and mature in our faith in order for us to survive the life until the end. Strength is NOT an overnight process! It takes a lifetime of continuous process of training, endurance, perseverance, getting knock down and get back up, determination to become a winner not a loser, focus on the goal ahead instead of the circumstances, which is temporary.
If you want to have a strong healthy body, then trained your body everyday to become stronger. If you want to have a strong mentality, trained yourself to not giving up when life is hard. If you want to have a strong faith, pray and understand God by reading His word and obey Him, trusting Him and train yourself to rejoice even when things go south. Yes, to rejoice takes training! We have the ability to chose how to react when trouble comes. We could trained our soul, mind and body to accept certain things the way it is, to endure, to be happy even when life sucks, to switch our mind from useless thoughts to useful ones, to rejoice when we are pushed down. Do you know that it is very painful for our enemy to see us rejoicing even when they meant evil toward us? Haters hates happy people, their goal is to make your life as miserable as possible just like theirs!! LOL.
Push through your problems, stop complaining and comparing, stop the pity party and the blame game. Push through your pain, reach for that strength, reach for wisdom, be still and know that God is in control.
Hardship builds a strong characters and attitude toward life, which helps a lot when we are under pressure :)
"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."
(James 1:12)
xoxo,
Lindsay
