A thought by John C. Maxwell (2000-03-08) from
his book, Failing Forward: How to Makethe Most of Your Mistakes (p. 114). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click
on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
I don’t think in any
way we could overestimate the event of Easter.
I mean Jesus was resurrected, He came back to life. That has made all the difference in our
lives, in our world and in our future.
But the reality is, we wouldn’t have had Easter without Good
Friday. He had to die first.
Oh how we would like
to do away with the Good Friday’s of our life.
We hate the pain of adversity.
We in the middle of it have a pity party or even a life is not fair
lament. But the Good Friday’s of our
life can be our friend, not our enemy.
It is in those horrible days that we will go through that something can
be built into us that will make all of the difference in our lives if we chose
to let them help to make us better and not bitter and draw us closer to God.
Now what if Jesus
would have gotten into the middle of that horrible day and said, “This is way
out of the line. Don’t they really know
who they are dealing with here? I mean, I
am the Son of God. I can just blow them
all away.” But He didn’t do it because
He knew in order for us to have life, eternal life, to live life in its
fullest, He had to first die. There
would be no resurrection without a death.
Please, please don’t
waist the failures, the mistakes, the adversity of your life. They are there for a reason.
John says, “Nothing in
life breeds resilience like adversity and failure. A study in Time magazine in
the mid-1980s described the incredible resilience of a group of people who had
lost their jobs three times because of plant closings. Psychologists expected
them to be discouraged, but they were surprisingly optimistic. Their adversity
had actually created an advantage. Because they had already lost a job and
found a new one at least twice, they were better able to handle adversity than
people who had worked for only one company and found themselves unemployed.”
John also says, “The
problems we face and overcome prepare our hearts for future difficulties.”
So how are you doing
this week?
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