When you’ve tried everything…

It is inevitable times of great stress will come. It is not necessarily the challenge you face that will prove who, and what you are. No. It is how you meet the situation!

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.” ~Abigail Adams

You know many of the old sayings … It is from trials that many quotes teach us from everyday people who learned to face life head on, and then had the courtesy to comment on their struggles of perseverance. 

True teachers always operate in learner mode! You never accept the way through life is identically faced by what was done yesterday.  Every day has it challenges. Do not borrow them from tomorrow. 

“Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it.” ~Jesus

Nor live on yesterday’s triumphs!

“Philippians 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” ~Paul

Always face the future with a certainty of success, else you live with a defeated stance. 

There is a little know named individual from scripture who defied a pagan King with a certainty of a God given victory regardless of the immediate outcome…. His name is Hananiah. His name essentially means “God has favored”.  Along with his two compatriots he faces the biggest trial of his life… What does he do? In face of certain defeat he does NOT give into temptation of an easy way out…. Read his story with his pagan name change and I am sure you know the rest of the story…

Daniel 3:12-18 There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” 13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? 15 Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

We do know the immediate success of this story! “We will not bend. We will not bow. We will not burn!”

Praying got you today to know where you are, how to face life immediately, and to chart a path with clarity of now and vision!

By Michael Gurley

Making Sense of Life, One Thought at a Time!