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What’s the Best Way to Navigate the Difficulties of Life?

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This Life Expedition is Made Easier with a Good Leader and a Good Plan

This past weekend our area was hit by a strong wind. I’m talking about a really, really strong wind. I’ve heard reports ranging from 80 to 100 miles per hour. I don’t know what the exact wind speed was, but what I do know is this…there was a lot of damage, a Ferris wheel blown over at the county fair, and a widespread electric outage for around to 24 hours in some areas.

The upside is that I haven’t heard of any serious injuries and witnessed neighbors helping neighbors.

Being without electricity for that amount of time brought to light how spoiled we are.

Don’t get me wrong…I love being spoiled with electricity and don’t want to go without it. But the disruption this caused to our everyday routines was evident. No electricity meant – no air conditioning, for those of us with well water…no running water, no charging of cell phones, thawing of food in freezers, etc.

This meant starting my day without my normal morning shower or coffee. ☹

I love routines and am much more productive when they are followed, but sometimes things happen that upset those routines. The question is how are we going to handle these disruptions?

Sometimes these routines can become so prominent that we become rigid and don’t look outside them. Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees in Luke 14:1-6. Jesus was healing people on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were stuck in their rules and laws. Jesus pointed out to them that if their son or ox fell in a well on the Sabbath, they would help them out.

When we get so set in our ways we don’t want to change. This leads to making excuses. In Luke 14:15-24, Jesus shares a story about people who were invited to a banquet but made up all kinds of excuses not to go.

It isn’t like they were being asked to do something that was hard or unpleasant…it was a banquet after all.

We are like the people in this story. We’ve been invited to an eternal banquet with Jesus, but we get caught up in our daily routines and make excuses for not accepting the invitation. We put it off.

When things like storms and power outages happen, we need to be clear about who we are and what things are the most important. We need to be flexibly rigid.

Life is an expedition and like any big undertaking there are going to be difficulties and hardships along the way.

The question is how are we going to handle them?

If we have a good Leader (Jesus) and a good plan (Bible) the adventure will be much better.

Who Are You at War With?

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It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way

 

A very successful businessman had succeeded at achieving most of his goals both business and personal. Yet, he still struggled with feelings of depression and anxiety. While in a hotel room on a business trip he became so depressed that he considered taking his life. As he sat there struggling with why he felt the way he did after all his success, he asked God, “Is this a joke?” Then he heard a voice say, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

 

We can find ourselves fighting internal battles trying to figure out why things aren’t the way we thought they would be. We all have our own demons causing trouble. Like the man in Luke 8:26-37, there is help in fighting these battles, but it’s up to us to acknowledge it. Jesus asked the demon for his name and they answered Legion, because there were many.

 


Knowledge is power and power is in the naming of something.

 


When we are clear about problems and name them, it’s less threatening when we know what it is. We want to blame somebody for our problems, but we need to be careful about this. There are three fights regularly picked that are unproductive. Don’t be at war with the wrong enemy.

 


1st – Don’t be at war with yourself. Many of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else. We blame ourselves for everything that is wrong in our life. We are extremely critical of not having accomplished all that we think we should.


2nd – Don’t be at war with other people. Maybe we are looking for somewhere else to lay the blame, so we point the finger at others. It’s not my fault so it has to be somebody else’s. We don’t want to take responsibility.


3rd – Don’t be at war with God. Life is full of difficulties and hardships. It’s not fair that this happened to me or that I was born this way. Whose fault is it? It must be God’s fault. We forget that we live in a fallen world full of battles.

 


Satan wants us to be at war with ourselves, our neighbors and God. This is what he does. We need to be clear on who the war is with.


Remember that you have the power to choose who you are going to be at war with. No matter what’s going on in your life, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY.