Adversity Is Your Friend

Who in their right mind would think that adversity is our friend? That is nuts. Yet it is a true statement.

Our whole life we work hard to make a better living, an easier journey with lots of fun with minimal suffering and pain. But each time we find ourselves getting stronger is through the time of adversity and not a time of ease.

For the longest time, I thought we overcome one obstacle after another, so that we can get to easy land. Only recently I heard John C. Maxwell says, and I paraphrase, we do hard things, so that we are prepared to do harder things. That blew my mind.

No one sets out to look for troubles, at least not the normal people. But when trouble comes, it is our response to them that will differentiate us from failure to success, from being crushed to becoming stronger because of it.

“...grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older.”

―Angela Duckworth, Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success

If Angela is correct, then that means to overcome obstacles, we must know what are we fighting for. Those who lost their passion, may soon find themselves in despair.

My calling is to provide for my family. I dream to provide a good environment for them to grow up in. Despite all the disappointments in my career or children getting sick or worse, losing one of them, my motivation remains to provide for my family, for those who are still here; to provide financially and as a role model in life for them. So in times of trouble, they will keep on keeping on as they look toward my example. I will not be the excuse for them to give up.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthen with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” ~ Ephesians 3:14-21

Important, I must pass on the secret of the source of power, Jesus, to them. For it is not through flesh and blood that I can stand in adversity. But by the power of the Holy Spirit that I may even have a chance to overcome.

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” ~ Romans 5:1-5

Lean on Jesus and find your calling. Join us and be an overcomer.