I remember my heart crying out:
“ Please, God, there’s gotta be another way. Open a door. Show me another path, Lord.”
There was a knot in my chest.
I had been looking for alternatives. A better path—an easier way.
But deep down I knew it.
Although I was desperately looking for the eject button, I would have to enter into the difficult season I was trying to avoid.
And in my heart I knew it would not be fun. At all.
Have you been there? Feeling forced to face a circumstance that you want to avoid at all costs?
Maybe for you it is a engaging in a season of counseling in your marriage.
Maybe confronting your teenage child about her recent choices.
Maybe it is a health procedure or the need to make a difficult financial choice.
Or maybe it is work-related, like it was for me back then.
How are you reacting to it?
Or better—how have you been trained to respond to adversity?
In my work with men over the past decade I have found that the two most common reactions to adversity are:
Avoidance— Closing one eye to the adverse circumstances and focusing on more comfortable or pleasurable things.
Or when the pain is severe enough,
Striving— Doing everything possible (including those anxious prayers) to get out of the hardship as fast as possible.
But is this the right approach?
Well, it depends. If the objective is just to live a life of comfort and convenience, then maybe…
But is it working? How is it going, by the way?…
On the other hand, if our purpose is to become the men God created us to be, then we need to approach adversity in a completely different way.
Because God loves to give us good things, but he is more committed to restoring us and initiating us as real men.
And this process of restoration and initiation often takes place in the midst of adversity.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
However crazy this may sound, “facing trials of many kinds”, according to the brother of Jesus, should be a source of “pure joy”.
Because it is through these trials that we are initiated by God into maturity—thus lacking nothing.
Just like a good coach at the gym, who through a protocol of heavy weight workouts guides you to increase muscle mass, your loving Dad in Heaven offers to initiate you, through adversity, into wholehearted maturity.
Because he loves you.
The question for each of us is whether we’re willing to accept God’s invitation, and walk through the adversity we find ourselves in, in union with him.
Can you trust that in the face of adversity you are safe in him?
Can you trust his character in the midst of the trials you are facing?
Can you yield to his will, knowing that in his love and goodness he will mature you and initiate you to become who he created you to be?
Can you trust that as you go through this with God, in the end you are going to be ok?
These were precisely the questions that Jesus faced when he was about to be captured, humiliated, tortured and killed.
He knew what was about to go down. Imagine the fear… I can almost hear the beating of his heart.
“…Kneeling down, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup of agony away from me. But no matter what, your will must be mine.”
But no matter what….
I’m all in.
Because I know that you are good.
I yield my will to your will.
I surrender every aspect of my heart and of my life to you now.
I choose to go through this with you..
And I trust you with all the outcomes.
Where in your life, is God inviting you to be forged by his love in the fire of adversity?
Where do you need to fully surrender to God?
Where do you need to trust his character, his goodness and love for you?
I pray that as you hear his invitation today, you may respond to him like Jesus did.
And that as a result, perseverance may finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Much love,
—
Pablo with WILDSONS