Lessons From Our Hardships

As we begin the New Year a lot of us will want to forget all of the difficulties from the previous year and only take the good memories with us into the new year.  Even when we are going through the hardships we tend to beg God to rid us of all the difficulties.  But just as we embrace the good times we must learn to embrace the hard times as well.  There's a lesson in everything we go through, even in the difficulties.  God clearly states to us that His power is made perfect in weakness.  A lot of people see the hardships we go through as weaknesses in our lives, but in those hardships we witness the perfect power of God.  Embrace those hardships because God will use that weakness and turn it into strength.  You don't have to take the hardships from the past into the new year but take with you the lesson from it.  One lesson learned is that you can hold on in your difficult times because if God did it before, He will do it again.  So through those difficulties, hardships, insults and persecutions, learn that whatever you need  God will provide.  Learn that God's grace is sufficient.  Learn that in our weaknesses God provides us with His strength.  God uses our weaknesses to strengthen us all.  So keep on fighting and know that you are not weak because with God you have strength like no other, power to overcome everything, and the ability to learn a lesson that will help you face hardships and difficulties in the future with grace and poise. 

7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

~2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Daily Scripture: God Breaks Chains

Throughout life we become imprisoned by the hardships of life, the negative comments about us by the enemy as well as the attacks of the enemy.  We become so entangled in the negative that we feel like we are walking around in handcuffs, completely confined by chains and that we are so far in darkness that we feel we will never see the light again.  But I’m here to tell you that even in your deepest gloom God hears you, even in your darkness God will wipe every tear from your eyes.  Everything that has you bound, God will deliver you from all your distress.  So even in your darkest moments praise God, worship God and give thanks unto God because He WILL deliver you from your darkness and gloom.  Keep your faith, even when it feel like the chains are causing you to stumble and know that soon you will fell the chains begin to loosen as God breaks every chain in your life.

10 

Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,

    prisoners suffering in iron chains,

11 

because they rebelled against God’s commands

    and despised the plans of the Most High.

12 

So he subjected them to bitter labor;

    they stumbled, and there was no one to help.

13 

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

    and he saved them from their distress.

14 

He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,

    and broke away their chains.

15 

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love

    and his wonderful deeds for mankind,

16 

for he breaks down gates of bronze

    and cuts through bars of iron.

~Psalm 107:10-16

Daily Scripture: God of Miracles

No man or woman is immune to hardships or troubles in life.  And because we are born into sin, the Bible states that we are born to trouble.  Although that may seem like bad news, there’s good news behind it all, a positive in a negative situation.  God, the God we serve, our Lord and Savior, is a God of miracles.  Whatever you are going through in life, whatever troubles may be getting you down, turn to God, appeal to Him, and lay all of your problems at His feet.  God continuously lets us know that He will provide for us, provide more than what we need. Don’t put God in a box and think that He can only do certain things, certain ways. Don’t put limitations and restrictions on the God we serve.  You must trust Him wholeheartedly and believe that God can perform in ways beyond our imaginations.  You must trust that if God said He will provide for you, if He said that He will get you out of that situations, that He will do it and there’s no limits to how He will get it done.  That problem you’re going through right now, God will deliver you from it in a way that you’ve never seen before.  Trust Him and believe that God will always be there for you, providing and covering you, lifting you to safety.  So hold on to your faith, know that trouble doesn’t last always and know that God can work a miracle, turn your situation around, and bless you with far more blessings than you can even count.

6 For hardship does not spring from the soil,
    nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
7 Yet man is born to trouble
    as surely as sparks fly upward.

8 “But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
    I would lay my cause before him.
9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
    miracles that cannot be counted.
10 He provides rain for the earth;
    he sends water on the countryside.
11 The lowly he sets on high,
    and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

~Job 5:6-11