Not If, But When

“I never thought it would happen to me!”

Life is full of turbulent seasons.  There is a constant roller coaster of ups and downs. Sometimes, we are blindsided by painful things that we never saw coming.  Other times, we face the consequences of our actions.

Whatever it may be that got us to that point… we know that in that moment, we feel pain and often confusion about how to move forward.

There is one main idea that we need to keep in mind when it comes to facing pain… It’s not “if” but “when”.

Life inevitably brings struggles. Pain is a part of the human experience, and hurts will occur. The real question isn’t whether you will face pain, but rather, how will you respond when you do?

It’s not healthy to go through life expecting the worst-case scenario around every corner, just as it’s not healthy or helpful to spend your days expecting that you’ll never get bad news.

The reality is that there will be things in life that hurt. While we can’t live life expecting everything to hurt, we can learn to trust God in all situations. We can change our mindset so that we are ready to respond well in hard times.

If we believe that we can go through life without facing anything difficult we will be disappointed.  Often when people say things like, “I used to believe in God, but then….” It’s because they had an expectation for how life should look, and it didn’t turn out that way.

God doesn’t tell us that if we have a relationship with Him, all of our troubles will go away.  But He does tell us that with Him, we can go through our troubles and make it out on the other side.

Jesus tells us in John 16:33-

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

It’s not a maybe that we will face trouble.  It’s a guarantee.  And for a lot of us, life can feel like we’re just bouncing from one trouble to the next.

But, we can remember that despite what we are facing, Jesus has overcome it.

He’s overcome sickness, heartache, addiction, loss, loneliness, confusion, dishonesty….

He has overcome the world that can cause us so much pain.

Be encouraged to face each day knowing that you don’t know it all and won’t have it all figured out.  But, you know the one that does.

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For more information about healing all of your hurts, learn about Celebrate Recovery.