Coping with life's problem
Have you ever found yourself in situations, you find it all hopeless? Do you find life miserable, everything seems to going wrong and nothing is going right? You want to give up, you want to run away, you just want to escape and have nothing to do with it?
Well, life does attempts to tear us apart in different directions especially, in the face of an adverse situation. There are often different kinds of reaction we can have towards these situations in life. We can either choose to run away and forever not learn how to cope with them, or we can trust in God's grace and His supernatural strength to enable us to walk through it.
Whenever we come face to face with such situation that is too difficult, too fearful or maybe even too troublesome to cope with, our natural reaction is usually to run away from them. More often than not, running away from the problem doesn't solve anything at all; in fact it often carries heavy implications in the future. The unsolved or unresolved problems in the past will snowball into the future posting an even larger one than before. And most people often will have to deal with the present issues, plus and on top of those that have been steadily accumulated over the past years, while at the same time, learn to tackle the problems that will come inevitably in the future.
As far as life is concerned, problems are inevitable part of us. It doesn't matter how old, how young, how strong, or how weak you are. It doesn't matter how rich, how poor, how smart or how lowly educated you are, problems will come to you someday, someway and somehow. No matter how hard we try to avoid them, we just can't, it's simply impossible. Coming back to the topic, how then shall we learn to cope with our problems? If we are consistently running away from them, then there will be no end in hiding, because it will eventually come back to us. However, if we should choose to face our problems with faith, confidence and determination, we can be a better person. When we learn to put our perspective right, our views change, our attitudes change even though the problem may still persist.
One of the things we can do as Christians is to pray. Prayer does have a major impact on our problem, though it doesn't make our problem disappear, it does however, gives us the peace that God is with us and He will give us the wisdom, His grace and His strength to help us through. Many times, when we are facing problems whether at home, at work or at church, we have the tendency to pray, "God, please help me get out of this situation." While God is more than able to do that, He often has other plans for us. All of us would love to have God coming to our rescue to save us out of our situation, but God prefers to help us through them. We often do not see how it works, but learning to cope with our problems, and walking and working through them, actually helps our character to grow. We learn through perseverance and patience. Romans 5: 3 – 5, tells us this, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Learning to lean upon God's help and strength, and waiting upon Him to fulfil His promises towards us in His time, requires both perseverance and patience. There are also two other very important aliments, which we often tend to neglect and they are the aliments of faith and obedient.
Both our faith and our obedience to God play a very essential role in terms of our spiritual walk with our Heavenly Father. While in the process of waiting on God and upon His answers to come, we often have problems worrying about what the future may bring us, or whether or not God will do what He says He will do. We have far too many concerns in our lives that we are unable to trust God or wait patiently and obediently for Him. Yet, that is what is mostly required of us, and the bible says it very clearly, "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards them who earnestly seek Him (Hebrew 11:6). And faith as explained to us in God's word is, - "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1).
The aliment of faith is made up of two parts - being sure of what we hope for and part 2 – being certain of what we do not see. The first part of faith deals with hope, having great expectation that whatever we are being hopeful to receive, we are sure to get it. The second part of faith, deals with being certain, or being confident. Being confident and believing positively about what we cannot see of the future. Put the two parts together, and faith is made up of – being hopeful and being confident. Our confidence is place in Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith (Hebrew 12:2). We can totally trust in Jesus in any circumstance, because Jesus is known to be faithful in all His ways and He is known to be steadfast and unchanging because "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever." (Hebrew 13:8)
We tend not to have the faith when things go wrong, and then we tend to be disobedient to God when we don't feel like doing what God's wants from us. Especially, when we do know that it requires a lot of changes in our lifestyles. It's natural that people don't like changes, but change is inevitable and is permanent. We can only be obedient towards God and have faith in Him, if we understand God and we truly trust Him. That trust and that faith comes from spending time in His word and worshipping Him and it starts with a relationship and as with every relationships, effort is required to maintain it. It requires discipline, which most people (including myself) lack greatly. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17).
The very fact we lack faith is the fact we lack discipline to read and to pray and spend quality time with Him. Having suffered from depression before, I felt that that is one of the most valuable lessons that God is teaching me. The fact that I do not pray and spend time reading His word as I should, I have given space and allowance to the devil to play with my mind, together with it, comes the lies and all sorts of negative and destructive thoughts. What the Lord has been teaching me is that worship is important. The more we don't feel like praying and worshipping, the more we SHOULD pray and worship. It takes a very deliberate effort and we must die to our flesh, and to our unwillingness to do the uncomfortable. The word of God teaches us, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
Another important weapon is – Praise & Worship. Worship changes our focus from ourselves and our problems to God. The worse we can do is to run away from the very place we ought to be in - in the place of worship of the saints and in God's presence. Our prayer has power; it is our communication towards God. Our worship has power; it is an expression and confession of our love, our faith and the acknowledgment of our Lord and Savior. Satan is allergic to our praise and our worship to God, and in the place where praise is offered to God, the devil has to flee. You still think you can't pray and you don't want to sing because you think it's hard and no one understands you? Well think again…"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, than we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in times of needs" (Hebrews 4:15-16). And we are also taught that, "No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man; and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you able, but with every temptation, will provide a way of escape also that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Let's just face the fact. The problems will not go away, and the only thing we can do about it is to be positive. Know, for a fact that God is in control and He is guiding us through it and helping us to overcome them and in the process, we grow to be more Christ-like. It is tough, but if we ever want to get better and grow, stay on and trust God! Our only source hope is truly found in Christ. Psalms 46:1 says, "God is our refuge and strength, our ever present help in times of need". So, run to Jesus and not away from him.
Winners never quit and quitters never win. You want to be a winner? Stay in the race, do not give up or lose hope! And finally, "For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purposes." (Romans 8:28) Still thinking of quitting? Think again! If I decided to quit, this book might not have able to be completed and published. One lesson that failure has taught me is this - I am not a failure just because I have failed once, but I keep trying and trying and I never give up on myself. The only time when I become a failure is when I decide not to try again and just remain at my fallen state. As long as you have not stopped trying and believing and trusting God, you still can and have hope that things will eventually turn around and become better. Remember that life is not a bed of roses, if life was that easy, we wouldn’t be in need of God and we will take everything for granted. At the point of my writing, I’m still dealing with health issues and other personal matters. God is still teaching me how to learn to have faith and be strong in Him. Proverbs 3: 5-6 teaches us this truth, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path”. At the end of the day, it is still about trusting God and He will lead you to the path of victory and success. It will happen, in His time, not ours. No matter how hard life is, life still has to go on.
Written by Michelle Yee
Serving with you in His Kingdom with love;
Princess Michelle -
Beloved Daughter the Most High King
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