Curve Balls

What do we do with life's curve balls? You expected one thing and ended up with something entirely different. You did not see it coming. You assumed life would go well today and then it didn't. Disappointment, confusion, discouragement, or despair set in. They plant their feet in your mind and sit down hard on your heart. What to do?

Do you know that Christ had tough days too? Listen to this: ...in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (Hebrews 5:7-8).

Somehow I've never pictured Christ praying with vehement cries and tears, except right before His crucifixion. That Scripture caught me by surprise. How does He know what we are feeling on our worst days? Because He has felt the same way too.


Who better to take our despair, our tears to than Jesus? He knows what you are feeling right now, not just because He knows your thoughts, but also because He experienced those exact feelings when He appeared in the flesh on planet Earth. Vehement cries and tears - those are pretty intense emotions.

Although I do not enjoy crying (who does?), I know that it is God's means of washing away the pain and hurt, the disappointment and despair. It cleanses our souls. It relieves the emotional pressure that builds up quite naturally when life throws us a curve ball, especially one that lasts weeks, months or years.

I have a family friend who has dealt with a medical condition in a family member for decades, yet has never been heard to complain. He diligently goes about his day serving people with a smile and modeling Christ to friends and strangers. His focus is not on himself, but on Christ and others. He was abandoned by his best friend more than 40 years ago, yet at that friend's funeral he stood up in the church and voiced the highest compliments about that friend, never mentioning to those gathered to pay their respects that he had not seen him in all those years. I will always admire the way he handled those curve balls.

There are two things that I learned from family and friends that have served me well through the dozens of discouraging and disappointing twists and turns in my life - persevere and never give up. In every trial we have an opportunity to learn to obey and to undergo the refining that fashions us in the image of Christ, if we do not quit.

Christ modeled obedience through suffering. In John 14 and 16 He tells us that He has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us through this maze of life. We are not alone. The Holy Spirit is our comforter and counselor. Ask for His help. Lean on His strength. You do not need to suffer alone. Lay your head down on the pillow, pour out your heart to Jesus. He's listening. When you've dried your tears, ask what He wants you to do next.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (I Corinthians 1:3-4).

Is there someone you can now encourage with the comfort you have received?

If you are still struggling, there is a great book that might lift your spirits, The God of All Comfort, by Hannah Whitall Smith. Whenever I pick up that book, I can randomly turn to any page and find encouragement from her words.

Don't let life's curve balls knock you out of the game. Persevere. Don't quit. Move through it leaning on Christ and His Word. Be obedient.

You cannot lose if you do not give up.

A Hole or a Window?

I was reminded this morning of a lunch I shared with my nieces when they were very young. I was helping them make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When we pulled out the second slice of bread and put it on the top of one of the sandwiches, one of my nieces got very upset. "It has a hole in it!" she cried. Sure enough there was a one inch 'gaping' hole in the slice of bread. What was intended to be a delicious lunch turned into a mini disaster for her. The sandwich was not what she expected.

"That's not a hole, that's a window," I exclaimed enthusiastically. "Look. You can see right into your sandwich. Isn't that amazing?" I looked intently into the 'window' and she followed suit. The mealtime disaster had suddenly been transformed into a fascinating science experiment. And she was the proud owner of a very special, very unique lunch.

So what 'holes' are threatening to steal your joy today? Have you lost a job or a friend? Did someone back out of a commitment? Did your plans get canceled? Are you staring at a hole in your life and wondering how it will be filled?

Perhaps there's another way to look at a loss. It's healthy to acknowledge the pain of disappointment, but keep it brief. Dwelling on it makes it worse. It magnifies the heartache and gives birth to discouragement. Allowing discouragement to linger leads to self pity and eventually depression.

We need to learn how to minimize the 'holes' in our lives so they do not become holes in our souls that need major repairs. How can we turn the hole into a window? If we've lost a friend, it's painful but it's not the end of the world, even if our feelings are telling us it is. Feelings are real but they can lie to us.

If we do not want to be swallowed up in sadness and self pity, we need to choose to rise above our situation. It is a choice that requires action and commitment on our part. If we do nothing but dwell on the pain, we will slide backwards into the pit of despair.

The first action is to humble ourselves and ask God what He wants for us. If we need a new job, ask God for connections and doors of opportunity. He might direct us to volunteer somewhere. We will be blessed and so will others. It turns the hole into a window of blessing. If we've lost a friend, ask God who to befriend. We might be surprised at who God picks.

The first commitment is to determine in our hearts that we will obey what He is showing us to do. Then do it promptly.

Is the hole caused by a hurtful remark or betrayal from someone close to our hearts? The first action is to forgive and ask God to heal the hurt. The first commitment is to determine to pray blessings on that person.

The hole created by the loss of a friend becomes a window of opportunity for God to bring someone new into our lives that we might not have received had we been preoccupied with the other friendship. God is always moving us forward into new relationships to bless us and to bless others through us. That new friend is out there waiting...if we are open to seeing our 'hole' as a window of blessing.

The hole caused by betrayal is a window through which we come to understand our own sins and God's unconditional love. We understand the Cross and Jesus' sacrifice for us when we experience what He experienced. As God heals our hearts, we become His vessels for sharing His love with others who have also been betrayed. Betrayal produces humility and sacrificial love that we would not learn any other way. It is a window into God's heart for us. It is a window through which we can relate to the brokenhearted all around us.

Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. I Peter 1:6-7

Even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. I Peter 3:14

Man's wisdom vs. God's

"If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).

What does it mean for us individually to take up our cross daily and follow Christ? Author Leslie Ludy writes, "I can either claim my life as my own and do what my flesh desires, or I can submit my entire existence to Him. The more I yield to His Spirit, the more I am able, by His supernatural grace, to live the set-apart life He has called me to live." Taking up our cross daily means that our jobs, our time and our lives no longer belong to us, but to God to do with as He will for His glory.

The following three biblical events have one thing in common: Noah building an ark, Joshua leading God's people to march around Jericho seven times quietly then shouting, and Gideon reducing his army of 32,000 down to 300 before fighting the Midianites who numbered over 100,000 men. These events make no sense to our logical human reasoning.

God has a Plan A for our lives, but sometimes His answers to our questions or problems do not make sense to us. Romans 8:6 (Amplified) reads, "Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death.... But the mind of the Holy Spirit is life and peace both now and forever."

Plan B is when we take it upon ourselves to apply human wisdom and reasoning to our problems without the influence and submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit. "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. Why? So no mortal man can boast" (I Cor 1:26).

King Saul had a Plan B when he attached the Amalekites. Instead of doing as the Lord commanded (kill all the enemy and their livestock), he spared their king and saved the best livestock to sacrifice to God. That made sense to Saul until Samuel pointed out his disobedience. Saul's response was, "I have sinned...because I feared the people and obeyed their voice." As a result, God rejected Saul from being king.

Henry Blackaby writes, "...Isaiah 55:8-9 indicates the best human thinking is far below God's wisdom: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord." If we want God's best for our lives, if we desire to please our Lord, then there will be many times when His solutions will not make sense and will require faith and sacrifice on our part. Are we obeying the voice of the people based on fear of what others might think or say? Are we obeying the voice of our flesh [sense and reason without the Holy Spirit]? Or are we listening and obeying the voice of the Lord out of love and reverence for Him?

Are we willing to be fools for Christ or fools for satan?