It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “God Is In The Small Stuff For Changing Times” by Bruce & Stan. Keep reading to find out how to enter.
One of the first things that I tell new employees at the company I work for is, “If you don’t like change, you’re in the wrong company.” Let’s be honest, not many of us like change. We don’t embrace it, we fight it. We don’t welcome it, we begrudgingly accept it. We don’t like things to be different, we like them the way they were. In this world we live in, things don’t have a beginning, middle and end like they used to. It seems like it’s one crisis after another. It’s one painful moment after another. But change brings about better things.
It reminds me of when my wife was in the hospital giving birth to our son. To induce labor, they gave her medicine to force contractions. They kept increasing the dosage until she was in a constant state of contractions. She never fully came out of one before the next one started. She struggled to catch her breath before the intense pain returned. That’s where our world is these days. That’s where our lives are. We face struggle after struggle. Heartache after heartache. Trial after trial and we get very little reprieve.
When we are in a constant state of struggle, we tend to turn our focus and energy away from God and onto surviving the circumstances. Instead of digging deeper in the Bible, we dig our feet deeper into the trenches to hold our ground. Instead of praying to God, we complain to anyone that will listen. It’s just who we are and how we are built. As Christians, we are called to go against that human nature. We are called to crucify daily the flesh that wants to do opposite of what God would have us do. The question is, “How do we do that?”
I believe the answer is to look ahead, beyond the trials. Look to what God wants to produce in you through the changing times. If you can find meaning in the trial, you can find joy in it. James 1:2 says, “When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” The struggles that my wife had in pregnancy and in labor produced a child that we love very much and has brought joy to our home. Your struggles will also produce something in your life that will bring great joy. You just have to think about the end result of your current struggle. You have to remained focused on what God is producing in you in order to survive. Hope is a powerful thing. It can get you through the darkest night.
Verse 3 of the same chapter in James says, “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow.” The choice is yours. Do you back out of the trial because it’s too hard? To you throw in the white flag because you’ve had enough? Do you tap out because it’s too painful? No! God is developing endurance in you. Let it grow! Max Lucado once wrote, “God may send you through a storm at 30 so you can endure a hurricane at 60.” God knows what your future holds and these changing times are producing in you what you need in order to endure. Embrace the change and get free of the things that keep your endurance from growing.
If you would like to win “God Is In The Small Stuff For Changing Times” by Bruce & Stan, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (April 26, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, you are already entered. Please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 