Dealing With The Unexpected Challenges of Life -- part 4
Today let’s look at two more ways that God can use unexpected challenges in our lives for His glory and for our utmost good.
Sometimes God uses unexpected challenges to get us back on track, back into His perfect will.
At times life becomes complicated and as circumstances unfold, we may ultimately find ourselves headed down a path that is less than God’s best for us. An abrupt unexpected, challenging interruption can force us to reevaluate where we are headed.
Basically, through circumstances we find the Lord saying, “No, you cannot go that direction any longer.”
I don’t know about you, but I pray that my steps are ordered of the Lord. And sometimes God can make use of “the unexpected” to get those steps back on the correct God-ordained path.
Years ago our daughter was dating a young man that we thought was going to ask her to marry him soon. But unexpectedly, out of the blue, something happened and that relationship was terminated in one afternoon. Our daughter was devastated and blind-sided most certainly. The experience caused her much pain and grief and together we walked with her for many months of emotional healing.
But this unexpected experience also led her to reevaluate God’s plan for HER life, her spiritual heritage, and her future spiritual destiny. Jeremiah 29: 11-14 became her refuge in those days of hurt and disappointment. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me, and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity.”
After the initial trauma of betrayal, she chose to adjust her life and said that God would have to bring her a husband. No more “missionary dating!” She chose to be “satisfied in her singleness.”
And then we saw our faithful Father “work all things together for good.” Within one year the Lord supernaturally placed a man in her pathway that was her destiny to marry. They met in March and married in January. Yes, it was totally a “God thing!”
Interestingly, she and this young man met through the unexpected traumatic challenge of another family that she was involved with through her job as a licensed nurse. The Lord sees the whole picture all the time and He most magnificently puts puzzle pieces together until they reveal His perfect will in His perfect timing.
The lost first relationship of our daughter would not have been one God-focused or ministry oriented at all and the Lord could not let her go forward with that. The unexpected challenge of a lost relationship brought her to a place of serving the Lord in a wonderful God-based marriage and ministry.
What was so painful at the time God was using to work His GOOD, His BEST in her life.
In all our unexpected experiences, God gives us the opportunity to stretch our faith in Him.
In times of crisis, we usually don’t throw our hands in the air and say, “Bring it on!’ Yet we know the Word talks about “the testing of our faith” so why should we be surprised when testing through unexpected challenges comes our way?
But honestly Mothers of Nations, reading about “testing” and experiencing these “testings of faith” are two quite different experiences, aren’t they? Our immediate reactions to the unexpected may be feelings of shock, powerlessness, anger, confusion, deep grief, and other “faith-less” feelings.
But then as we learn to stretch our faith in these rock bottom experiences, we discover that Jesus is THE ROCK at the bottom! He sustains, anchors, strengthens and comforts us through it all.
Our task is to remain full of faith and hope – not losing our confidence. But how do we hold on to our confidence, our sense of expectancy, in times of crisis? Galatians 6: 9 says this: “And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” This is a verse of great hope!
Isaiah 61: 3b (NAS) teaches us how not to faint when unexpected challenges come our way. The Lord gives us “…the mantle of praise instead of the spirit of fainting.” We must keep on believing, declaring, and praising Him in faith that better days are coming, not fainting as we are waiting.
When we praise Him, it brings incredible results: joy, deliverance, purpose, strength, physical healing and more. Praise is a huge key in dealing with the aftermath of unexpected situations.
I’ve learned to praise no matter how weak that praise may start out. Let me share with you just one example from my own life where I faced incredibly difficult unexpected circumstances. Without going into any detail, suffice it to say that as this unexpected situation unfolded, the enemy began to strongly attack me with fear.
One morning as I awoke, I immediately recognized that an invisible spirit of fear was standing at the side of my bed. I got up and tried to function with the day’s schedule but my mind was being bombarded with all kinds of fearful thoughts. I asked my husband to take our daughter to her gymnastics class and while they were gone, I was going to go to battle!
As a minister of worship and a teacher of principles of praise and worship, I knew about the power of praise but now, I had to do this by faith. I had to walk out what I knew was truth despite what I was feeling and thinking.
My spiritual strength and my level of faith was zero! I sensed no unction, no presence of the Lord as I attempted to feebly praise God. My mind was racing with thoughts like: What are we going to do? How will we ever get past this situation? This could be the end of our reputation! And on and on and on. The spirit of fear was having a grand time sending accusations to my mind.
So mechanically I started by laying on my family room floor, face down in the carpet. I began to sing a chorus of praise and at the same time sobbing deeply. But I just kept singing and slowly I began to feel stronger, both physically and spiritually. As the strength grew I stood up, wiped my nose and dried my tears. My voice became stronger and I began to walk and circle the family room singing louder and louder with each rotation.
Maybe fifteen minutes after the time I started to praise, I sensed that spirit of fear leave my home. In that one experience I knew that my faith could defeat anything that the enemy put in my pathway. Our initial unexpected challenge had not yet been resolved, but I was a different person now and my faith in God was stronger than ever before.
Looking at your own life, in what ways has God been able to use the unexpected challenges that have come your way? Please take some time to think about how the Lord has faithfully brought you through difficult situations and in His sovereign ways has “worked all things together for good” in your life.
Until next week,
Rev. Nola Beintema
