“We are hard pressed, but not crushed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8 NIV
“Your definition of the problem should not determine your prediction of the conclusion.”
My thoughts today are about “resilience and tenacity.”
Life can sometimes be hard, and its experiences difficult. To assume otherwise is to be vulnerable to shock and disillusionment when things are not as you would like them to be. The answer is certainly not to live anticipating trouble and worrying about things that could happen. That would permit just the possibility of trouble to cloud even trouble-free days. How would that make everyday life any better? Or inevitable troubles any less?
The answer to difficult times and circumstances is tenacity, a determination not to be defeated. You will observe in life that it is not always the strongest, nor swiftest, nor brightest that succeed. Sometimes it is the one who simply refuses to quit – who fights against every discouragement, who presses through every difficulty, who ignores every prediction of failure, who spares no effort, who sees no problem as insolvable and no obstacle as insurmountable. A person with tenacity simply believes that there is a way even when everyone else thinks there is not!
Here’s how someone can find the grit and grace to do all that. They know in their heart the One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!” John 14:6 NIV. Isaiah wrote of the Lord, “I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea.” Isaiah 43:16 NLT. Moses and Israel found God faithful to make a way where there seemed to be none; so will you! See Exodus 14:13-31.
The goal of a trouble-free life is not realistic and definitely not achievable. Your definition of the problem must not determine your prediction of the conclusion. The nature or severity of the trouble you face is not what defines the outcome you will see. Only God knows; only time will tell. It is always too early to know what’s to come, until God has spoken. Take your eyes away from the trouble and look long into the face of your God.
Your God has lifted a prisoner in a foreign land to its throne, delivered a nation from cruel bondage and sustained them in a wilderness, killed giants with a shepherd’s sling, delivered the Godly from lions’ dens, quenched the violence of a fiery furnace, fed widows through a famine, opened prison doors supernaturally, raised up the lowly and brought down the mighty, and raised His Son from death and promises the same to you. He still specializes in the impossible.
“By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fires, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and out whole armies to flight. Women received their loved ones back again from death.” Read Hebrews 11:29-40 NLT.
Whatever your situation today or tomorrow, you can be one of those resilient people – indefatigable and undefeatable with the tenacity and ability to bounce back – “hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” See 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 NKJV. I want to be counted among those; don’t you?
My prayer for you today is: never give up on God or yourself; never give up hope.