Tag Archives: Adversity

Isn’t The Lord Simply Amazing?!?!?

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We’ve all heard that term, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”  It’s amazing just how true and real that statement is.  I’ve learned throughout my life that He works in ways we just don’t see coming often times.  Maybe its through a tragedy.  Often times we may wonder what God is doing when something bad happens.  What I have learned though, is that those things happen in order to give us a chance to return to Him and glorify Him more.  It also allows us to gain strong glimpses of His goodness when he moves others to work.

My family and I received a wonderful view of this in the past couple of days.  My son, Brandon, was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic this past fall.  Obviously, with all of that comes added costs of buying insulin, monitors, test strips, and doctor follow-ups.  It was certainly a challenging time frame for the family and most certainly my son as he has learned to live this new life as diabetic.  He has adjusted to this so much better than I could have ever hoped though and does not let it run his life.  In fact, he was named by our local Children’s Healthcare system as their Comeback Athlete of the Month and now is being voted on for Athlete of the Year.  He is a competitive travel baseball player and did not let it stop him at all.

With that said, this week, at our doorstep, there was delivered a whole host of diabetic supplies.  A new monitor, test strips, needles, and more and will be replenished every three months at no cost to us.  Someone, somewhere put our name in to this Christian Foundation that is now supplying these supplies on going.  I can’t even begin to tell you what an amazing blessing that was to our family.  To know that a substantial portion of this permanent cost is now covered is simply amazing.

This was just further proof of God’s amazing and mysterious work.  It is quite evident that His Spirit moved through someone to do something that we never saw coming and was a tremendous blessing to our family.  We are so grateful to this mysterious person and recognize that this was God’s work.

If you ever have a doubt that God is not at work in your lives.  Think again.  He is very much there through every aspect of our lives.  He has a purpose for everything He does and that we encounter in life.  Challenges come to Glorify Him and wonderful things happen to Glorify Him.  It all comes back to God.  Don’t lose site of the Lord and take time to speak to Him through prayer.  he will intervene in your life.  Many times in ways you never see coming.  He is always there and I am so thankful to have a God that loves us that much and whose glory shines down everyday in our lives.

Don’t Wait For Happiness To Come To You

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You know all too often, we hit periods of time where for one reason or another, we just are not happy with ourselves or with the current status of our lives.  It may be circumstances with our work, maybe our career is not going the way we want to go, maybe things are not as happy as they should be in the home with strained relationships with one’s spouse or even children.  Maybe you have lost sight of God in your life because of circumstance and not sure he is playing a roll in your life.  It could be anything.  Many of us, including me ,have come to points where we are just flat our miserable and not sure when things can get better.

When we hit these points of depression and unhappiness we often find ourselves in a more negative state.  It becomes difficult to be positive and your not sure how thing can get better.  Like I said, I am no different.  What in the world do you do with that?  How can you get yourself out that rut and move toward a point where you are happy again with life and your direction?  I certainly had those questions.  About 8-9 years ago, my career was at a point where I was flat miserable everyday.  Nearly 4 years ago, I lost my Dad in a tragic accident and thought, what does anything matter anymore.  I was in bad way mentally, even though most people would not know it.

First over the past couple of years, I chose to walk closer with God each day and that reestablished my relationship with Christ.  Then I realized, no matter what they situation is, I have to make the choice to get myself out of a rut and find the happiness that helps me come alive again.  I have done a lot of reading and a lot of soul searching in recent years.  I’ve quoted Earl Nightingale many times especially from the “Strangest Secret” when he says, “We become what we think about.”  If we set our mines on the negative we will never find the positive.  We have to gear our minds to think toward the positive, to think toward the goals we want, to think toward happiness.  It is all purely mental.  You have to have the  mental toughness to not let circumstance keep you from reaching your potential.

Going back to Earl Nightingale, he also said, “Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.”  We have to find what makes us happy.  We cannot wait for it come falling in our laps because it won’t.

I’ve come to realize that our time that God gives us on this Earth is very precious and is gone in the blink of an eye.  Don’t stand by and let it move past not make the most of the time you’re given.  It can be gone in a snap.  Don’t waste your time on the negative.  Things will happen in life.  It is a part of life.  But you need to have the mental toughness to bounce back and move forward with life.  Paul said in Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”  You have to fix your mind on the positive.  Fix your mind on what is worthy and not where the adversary wants you to go.  Fix your mind on Christ and he most definitely will guide out of the difficulties you face to freedom and happiness.  You have to make that choice and not wait for it come to you.

Conquering Fears That Tell You No

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We all have fears in life, don’t we.  There are those things that we encounter that tell us that we cannot do something.  What fears have you encountered?  It could be anything from riding a roller-coaster, flying in a plane, fear of new opportunities, fear of failure, and even, yes, fear of success.  Fear is something that is so stifling, that it can keep you from perusing your dreams and goals and force you down paths that are completely contradictory to anything that you would otherwise do.  Fear can keep you stuck in a job that makes you flat out miserable.  I know many that have been there.  Either they become too secure in their job and its benefits or they just don’t want to risk going on to something new for fear of the unknown.  This fear can suck the spirit out of you and keep you from ever coming alive.

Dr. Charles Stanley had a great quote about fear.  He said, “Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.”  Does this sound like you or anyone you know?  The fear can come from a number of areas.  It can be your own psychological fears of moving forward or it could those naysayers that constantly want to tell you that you can’t do this or you shouldn’t do that.  Either way, as Dr. Stanley said, fear stifles your thinking and actions and can result in lost opportunities.

The struggle that must be faced by everyone is how to conquer that fear.  What can you do to brush aside the naysayers and that nagging feeling that keeps you from pursuing the goals you have ahead and what God has intended for you?  Elbert Hubbard stated that “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one.”  We all know there will times where you will not succeed in one venture or another.  If you never try however, for fear of failing, then you have once again let fear overcome you and your goals.

So how do you conquer those fears?  The biggest thing is to put your trust in God that He will lead you through the challenges and toward the path He wants you on.   Psalm 56:3-4 says, “But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.  I praise God for what he has promised.  I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?”  That’s self evident there.  What can anyone or anything do to stop you if you put your trust in God.  He will help you overcome your fears when you trust in Him and let Him take control.

With your trust in God, you can muster the strength to overcome any fear and follow your dreams.  Les Brown stated that “A lot of people do not muster the courage to live their dreams because they are afraid to die.”  Don’t be afraid of where the path goes.  Follow your dreams and goals and follow them without fear.  I have a frame on my wall at home that says “The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.”  Know that He is always there.  Don’t be afraid of failure.  Don’t be afraid of success.  Don’t be afraid of the unknown.  Have faith that the path you follow is the one you are meant to be on.  You keep your mind fixed on those goals and they will come to fruition.

So don’t ever let anyone or anything tell you that you can’t follow your passions and dreams.  You can conquer those fears.  I have had my share of those fears over the years of where I may end up.  It is now in God’s hands and he is guiding down the path I was intended to take.  You can do the same thing.  It takes time, so don’t let that stop you either.  Stay focused and you can conquer those fears and come alive!

The Need for Mental Toughness

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I’ve been meaning to write about this for several days, but travels and school demands have kept me at bay the last couple of weeks.  This is regarding something I got to experience the weekend prior at my son’s first baseball tournament of the season.  It has to do with guts and mental toughness.  Down in Georgia, we get the baseball and softball seasons going early.  Practice for travel teams usually kicks off full time after the first of the year, with the first tournaments by late February to early March.  My son’s travel team, South East Baseball, played its first tournament the weekend before last in temperatures that were clearly not baseball weather.  As his coach said, there’s a reason Spring Training is in Florida.

Anyway, we were out at the ballpark for many hours on Saturday and Sunday.  For us parents, it was ridiculous cold.  It felt unnatural to be there with my winter coat, sock hat, hand-warmers, gloves, etc.  But while us parents were there freezing our tails off, our boys were out there playing as if the cold didn’t phase them.  Game after game, they would take the field and play there best and won game after game.  By day two and championship play, the temperature and wind chill tanked.  Yet, our guys were still out there staging an awesome come-back to win the tournament and be the only undefeated team in our brackets.  These boys didn’t wine, they did not come looking for their hoodies, they just got out there and played their best.  It was fun to watch the character of these guys and their mental toughness to just gut it out and finish the tournament.   They had their eyes on the goal and stayed fired up to finish what they set out to do.

The other day, I ran across a quote from Bill Russell, which said, “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins to victory.”  That’s exactly what I saw on display.  These boys concentrated and had the mental toughness to finish and drive to victory.  I believe this holds true with anything in life, not just in a baseball tournament.  In life we are constantly facing obstacles in pursuit of our goals.  It may not be the cold weather, but could be any number of things that can try to slow you down.  In order to obtain that goal and victory, requires mental toughness and concentration.  Know what it is you want, set your mind on that goal and go for it.

God’s Word tells us over and over to not fear and to be strong and courageous.  This requires mental toughness to continue driving forward.  As I’ve said before, Always Forward and never back.  Know what it is you want to achieve and set your mind and actions in motion to achieve that goal.  Your character shows when you set your actions in motion toward a goal.  If you let things slow you down, such as the cold at this tournament, you will find it very difficult to succeed.  Keep driving with the mental toughness to succeed and you will.

What’s Your Excuse?!?!?

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Yesterday, I was a at a big meeting that was capped off by a motivational speaker.  Some of you may have heard of him.  His name is Erik Weihenmayer.  If you have not heard of him, go to www.touchthetop.com to learn a little more about him.  Erik is a truly phenomenal speaker with a great story of overcoming serious adversity to do amazing.  What is his adversity, you may ask?  Erik is blind.  Blinded after a rare eye disease hit him in college.  Okay, you may think great.  What is even more amazing though, is the things this guy does.  First, he climbed Mt. Everest (yes blind), he goes kayaking, and a number of other amazing adventures.  For the purposes of the meeting, a key message he had was the importance of the team he has behind him.  I will touch on that in my next post.  The other big message that I got was, what’s our excuse for not doing anything?  This guy climbs mountains, along with others with disabilities, including one guy who is a paraplegic, and another that is a double amputee in his legs and others.  It was truly inspiring to see the wonderful things he has done in his life and not letting the setback of going blind run his life.

Hearing his story reminded me of another I guy I had heard about a couple of month’s back named, Sean Stephenson.  He was featured in December’s issue of Success Magazine.  Sean suffers from brittle bone disease, and at age 33 has suffered over 200 fractures.  Despite all of this, Sean is a guy who does not let anything keep him back and has become very successful as an author, motivational speaker, and more.  He’s a guy who does not let things hold him back.  Listening to his interview from that magazine issue was pretty awesome as well.

Both of these guys made me reflect on myself and everyone around me.  We all come through life and meet different levels of adversity.  Things that seem like a brick wall trying to keep us from unleashing who we are meant to be, or at least it may seem like it.  I have learned from my experiences, and from these two stories that any adversity set before us can also be significant strength builders to becoming who we are truly meant to be.  We have to let ourselves hear what that is and not be consumed in the pity party saying poor me.  Albert Schweitzer said, “One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.”  Those moments of adversity are those moments when our metal is truly tested.  We are meant to find out who we really are and how we can overcome that adversity and use it to our advantage.  Erik Weihenmayer and Sean Stephenson certainly did.

So I ask you, what’s your excuse?  If you are stuck in that mode of I just can’t get ahead.  I can’t find opportunity.  I can’t reach my goals.  What’s your excuse.  Truth be told, there is not excuse.  You have to find it in yourself to pick yourself up and drive forward.  To leap over that obstacle in your way to find the opportunity, to get ahead, to reach your goals, and come alive.  I have said time again that we all have a purpose under God.  He has a special purpose for each one of us.  That adversity is a significant part of that purpose.  Live, learn, and continue to drive forward and grow.  I say again, what’s your excuse?  If you let adversity hold you back, you will always find yourself falling behind.  Getup and climb.  Use adversity as a source of strength and you will be stronger than ever before.