Adversity: Here to Break Us or Make Us?

By Chuck Gallozzi

Difficulties are the admission tickets to the game of life. But, at times, we cannot help suspecting that life would be much more pleasant without the hassles. Is that what you think? Before answering, ponder the following.

In a world without hurdles, there are no champions; without suffering, there are no saints; without battles, there are no victories; without rain, no rainbows. Doesn’t it appear that a world that includes pain is more rewarding than one that doesn’t? Isn’t heat necessary to produce gold, pressure and polishing necessary to produce diamonds, and adversity necessary to produce character?

Here’s how Henry Ford expressed the same sentiment: “Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. We must learn that the setbacks … which we endure help us to march onward.”

Face the Lions

A young boy is trying to make his way on horseback to a land of promise, but the boy’s entire journey seems beset with encounters with lions.

During the beginning of his journey, when lions pursue him and another nearby traveler, they end up journeying together for added safety. At another time, just as they are trying to reach the safety of a city in advance of some evildoers, and think they may not make it, another lion pursues them. This causes them to expend even more energy and strength to reach the gates of their desired haven.

Finally, the boy, exhausted from his journey, is trying to find his way on a foggy path to a place of shelter where he can sleep for the night. But he can’t see the way, and soon realizes he’s lost. And if that isn’t bad enough, he hears a lion’s growl just in front of him. That was the last straw for the boy. He didn’t care to run or hide or try to fight off the attacker this time.

“Fine, eat me!” he says. “I don’t care anymore. My life is horrible and everything goes wrong for me.” But to his surprise, the lion talks to him and asks him why he feels like his life is so horrible.

The boy goes on to expound on all the difficulties of his journey, making mention of every encounter with lions. He says that surely he must’ve had the worst life of all because everything always went so wrong. Then he asks‚ “See, don’t you now agree that my life is cursed?”

The lion responds, “No. Instead I see that your life is blessed.” Shocked, the boy asks him how, and the lion replies‚ “There was never more than one lion with you on your entire journey. And I was that lion.

“I was the one who chased you at the beginning of your journey so that you would travel with a companion. I was the one who scared away hungry animals at night, even though my growls also scared you. And when you were running for safety in the city, I was the one who chased you just when you felt like you had no more strength left.

“Through chasing you I gave you the strength to run harder than before so that your pursuers wouldn’t catch up with you. And now, when you are lost and feel at the end of your rope, I am here with you to show you the way home.”

–Excerpt taken from “Apples Of Gold, Part 1 [#3644]“

Links:

Message Channeled From Beyond: “Face the Lions”–full. Click for more…

That’s Bad, That’s good

…One day a man bought a stallion, and all of his friends said, “That’s good.” The next day the stallion ran away, and all of his friends said, “That’s bad.” Two weeks later the stallion returned with a herd of mares. His friends said, “That’s good.” The next day his son broke his shoulder when the stallion threw him off. The friends said, “That’s bad.” The next month war broke out. Because the boy was injured, he could not go to war. The friends said, “That’s good.”
-Dan Millman

̒̒̒̒ ̒ all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. ̓̓ ̓̓

Romans 8:28(NKJV)

It Didn’t Come To Stay….

A wise woman once said “I have always been encouraged by the words “And it came to pass.” When I am upset by troubles, I go to the Word of God, and I never get far before I read “It came to pass.”–an old English phrase meaning “it happened” or “next” or “once upon a time” But I read that phrase and interpret it literally, “Thank God that the storms of life didn’t come to “stay” but that it came to…”pass” –it passed over, came and left.

I found that in my “storms” of discouragement and despair I just had to carry on faithfully. And as I did, these things came to pass, and I was brought through them. The storms did not always end when I wished them to. I had to go through the beatings and the thrashings many times, but God always gave me the grace, and afterwards brought me through, comforted me, healed me, kept me and rewarded me—It didn’t come to stay—it came to pass!

So next time you are weathering a storm or you are facing one of those test of endurance—tell yourself that it hasn’t come to stay but it has come, and will definitely pass!

Here for additional reading

Love and Trust Are Inseparable

Love and trust are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other.

That was the quote on my perennial calendar today and turned on a light in my mind and provided me with an answer to something I struggle with and that is: Loving God but having a hard time trusting him….especially when suffering personal disappointments.

Sometimes I let the struggles or difficulties teach me lessons that God wants to teach me or give me compassion and understanding for others, but often struggles or difficulties, especially those that time hasn’t healed yet, or that don’t make sense at all, turn my heart somewhat “bitter smart”.

I tend to blame myself, others, circumstances or my environment for most of things that go wrong. But the problem is that since I’ve given my life to God and believe what He says in the Bible that “all things work together for good to them that love him” then there must be something wrong with promise or maybe God has made some kind of mistake. I often end up getting upset and angry at Him for allowing bad things to happen to me, especially when I don’t see the “works together for good” part. What this quote clearly says is that if you love God fully you have to trust Him fully.

If you were to pull me off the street and ask me if I love God, I would answer “yes” but if you were to ask me if I trusted God…well, as much as I know what the answer should be…..I wouldn’t be as definite. It really shouldn’t be that way and as the quote says, “Love and trust are inseparable. Love=Trust

All that to say, today’s quote reminded me to love God more by trusting Him. With the end goal of loving and trusting Him fully and completely.

All Occurs For a Reason…….

“All occurs for a reason”, such a beautiful phrase but also seems to be one of the hardest phrase to personally believe or accept when facing difficulty, lost, and disappointment. To be honest I’ve been going through some personal heartbreaks of late, that are too personal to post here, but what I can say is that it’s been a bit like one of your worst fears coming upon you and then not really knowing whether it’s here to stay or it will pass, but all the while waiting in agonizing limbo.

It’s been a real struggling. Sometimes it’s hard—no, almost impossible, to keep on going, taking that next step to make it through the day. I feel at the best of times I’m just running through the motions–a zombie, sorta. Though I’ve heard that “there is always a light at the end of every tunnel” or “the darkest hour is just before dawn” it just doesn’t always look or seem that way in reality.

I think that if it weren’t for the love and mercy of God and His angels of comfort, and the promises in His Word—which gives me the faith and hope to meet these challenges, I’d just be overwhelmed by the weight, the negativity, and despair of it all. Now I don’t want this blog post to spread despair and hopelessness to you. I’m pretty sure that everybody has enough troubles of their own without needing to wade through someone else’s private negativity. So that’s why I wanted to post these beautiful lyrics that really put some interesting perspectives to disappointments and nonsensical occurrences. I mean if you look at troubles in the positive, the way the lyrics below bring out; it certainly takes the edge off the monsters of despair and hopelessness which try to undermine your happiness, faith, and sanity.

If you are going through any personal tragedy in your life right now, I totally feel for you especially after battling myself through some recent long and lonely trials. If sorrow, injury, loneliness, loss, heartbreak, tragedy, death, sickness, confusion, hopelessness, suffering, deprivation, or anyone of the myriad of difficulties of life are crushing down on you and threatening to take everything good away from you—don’t’ give up hope. There is Someone who cares for you and loves you–Jesus, the greatest and most wonderful, loving spirit of light, who loves you more than anyone else in the whole word can and will help you if you need Him. Call out to Him and He will answer you. Trust me He is there in your darkest night. Keep hope alive. Don’t give up the fight. I hope this poem below will encourage you in some special way. You can also listen to a the song at this link:

Rhyme of Life.mp3–Net Radio

Rhyme Of Life Lyrics

If every thought that came to mind came true,
What kind of world would it be?
If every promise sworn by man was kept,
What would divine words mean to me?

If every chance to succeed had gone my way,
What personality would I have today?
If my first romance had granted me life’s every passion,
Would I have ever crossed your way?

Looking through the book of my life,
Turning pages of passing years,
I see a perfect rhyme throughout my life line.
Through the good times I hold dear,
And through my heartaches, through my tears,
My life has moved in time to the Creator of the design.

If every kiss had promised something more,
Would I have ever felt let down?
If my every desire had ended in satisfaction,
Would I still be satisfied now?

If my every dream had become reality,
What would I be dreaming of today?
If every wish I’d wished had come to be,
Would I be happier today?

I take from life all it has to give, given by the One for whom I live.
All occurs for a reason,
And for this reason I live a life that was given to me to give.
Through the good times I hold dear,
And through my heartaches, through my tears,
My life has moved in time to the Creator of the design.
Music & lyrics: Andrew V., Katrina L.

Ever feel like a violin?

A maker of violins searched all his life for wood that would serve for making violins with a certain beautiful and haunting resonance. At last he succeeded when he came into possession of wood gathered from the timberline, the last stand of the trees of the Rockies, 12,000 feet above sea level. Up there where the winds blow so fiercely and steadily that the bark to windward has no chance to grow, where the branches all point one way, and where a tree to live must stay on its knees all through its life, that is where the world’s most resonant wood for violins is born and lives and dies.

Moral of the story, there is a lot more that goes into the wood of that fine violin? Part of the beauty of those assembled and crafted bits of tough-nut wood—come through the many difficult, rough and violent storms it faces in the wild and amongst the elements—sounds a bit like life doesn’t it?

Life is fair because God is good…..

One famous preacher from the USA gave a whole sermon on the theme: “Life isn’t fair, but God is good”. Naturally, I have to admit, I tend to agree with that outlook even when I’m in the best of moods, but with my new positive outlook on life, I now agree with someone else who commented on that sermon and said:

Life is fair and God is fair! If you say life isn’t fair, you’re saying God isn’t fair. And if God is not fair, neither is He good. So if you really believe that God is good, you must then conclude that He made life fair. By saying that life is unfair, by logical inference you must conclude that if God created life, that He too must be unfair. Because how could a fair God create an unfair life? If he’d said, “Sometimes life doesn’t seem to be fair,” that would have been better. But how can God be good and not create life to be good? If you say life is unfair, who’s going to believe you when you say, “But God is good”? God’s Word teaches you to see something good about everything, really, if you love the Lord. The Bible really says all things are good!”All things work together for good to them that love the Lord. (Rom 8:28) When you say that “all things work together for good to them that love the Lord,” you’re saying that all of life is ultimately good and good for you! It also says, “He doeth all things well” [Mk.7:37]. Life is good, and God is good! –DBB