Yesterday I met with someone who serves as a corporate chaplain. It’s nice to know that some companies think enough of their employees to hire a chaplain to assist with serving the spiritual needs of their employees and that such an option is available to a business person. I asked what problems were the most prevalent that he encountered and he told me they were financial, communication, and family related, with financial being the most common.
I receive a bevy of letters each month that seem to confirm those exact same problems as being the primary concerns of those who write me. In fact I received letters yesterday from two different people but in looking at the content they both could have been written by the same person.
They were highly agitated over their floundering financial situations and questioning whether or not they were being punished by God and despondent to the point of suicide about it. I pointed out that millions upon millions of people are financially floundering in this economy and while I cannot speak to God’s involvement in their personal lives I sincerely doubted if they were being singled out for punishment.
We live in tough economic times and judging by the actions of the current administration and deadlock in congress we might as well settle in and get used to it for a while. It seems their interest is more about political posturing and being re-elected rather than addressing the serious problems facing our country.
My advice to these people was to spend their time thinking of fresh new ways to improve their financial situations and not to spend time worrying. Worrying will not accomplish anything. Jesus said it is a sin and there are consequences to sin.
One thing sure if you want to bring about change in your life, you will need to change something in your approach to it. Common sense will tell you if you keep doing things the exact same way you have always done them you can hardly expect to receive a different result. So-o-o-o-o if you don’t like the results you are currently getting in your life, then change the way you approach it.
I believe that far too many give up far too quickly. Perhaps in order to supplement income in these hard times another job may be in order, even if it’s delivering pizzas by night and working by day somewhere else. Sound palatable?
Probably not, but tough times sometimes require tough decisions. Working two or even three jobs is a radical solution, but radical times might call for just that.
If you came to a river and tried to cross it by wading, but it was too swift and too deep, would you just give up and go home? Or would you sit on the bank and cry about it and wonder why God Is punishing you? Or would you just keep trying to cross the swift river in the same place by wading out into the deep?
I would change my approach and look for another way to get across the river. I might build or rent a boat, or walk downstream or upstream to find a better place to cross, or build a raft, or swing across it on a vine, or by golly get shot out of a big cannon on a motorcycle like Evil Knievel, but I would darn sure get across that river somehow – some way!
God gave us a brain and we should use it.
The man I met with yesterday asked me if I believed that God wanted us to have money. I told him that I believed that God wants us to be successful and I don’t think He wants anyone to fail. Success however is not determined by money. I will point this out in my success seminar later this fall. Success is finding inner peace and joy. You can’t buy peace and joy, you won’t find it in a bar room or a bedroom, or in a line of cocaine, or by smoking a joint, or in getting a promotion, or getting elected, or in a new home, pool, fast car, private jet, limo or vacation home. Success, (having peace and joy in our lives) is having a close relationship with God and you can only find success through Him.
It begins with unwavering faith. God loves you and wants you to succeed. Understand that; believe it! My personal experience tells me that if we are to succeed we must seek God’s will through prayer and meditation and when we find peace with a decision that He wants us to go a certain way then we should go to work. We should use our brain to accomplish our goals, and whenever we run up against a brick wall we should look for a way around it, over it, under it, through it, or blow the thing up with a stick of dynamite. If we are willing to work hard and smart, willing to do whatever it takes including swallowing our pride and perhaps even doing things we don’t necessarily want to do, and have tenacious perseverance and resolve in achieving that goal, we will achieve it.
If you succeed in tough times it builds your character and better prepares you for the next tough times. Perhaps God allows them in order to build our character and just like refining gold the end product is worth the fire and sweat of removing the impurities from us. Who knows why we have hard times. We all have them and I can assure you I’ve had my share. I’ve learned that even having MORE faith in our God is what will get us through them.
2 Cor. 4:16
This is the reason we never lose heart. The outward man does indeed suffer wear and tear, but every day the inward man receives fresh strength. These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. For we are looking all the time not at the visible things but at the invisible. The visible things are transitory: it is the invisible things that are really permanent.
Heb 11:1
Faith… makes us certain of realities we do not see.
Rom 10:17
Faith comes by hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
Job 13:15
Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him….
Heb 11:6
Without faith it is impossible to please God….
Luke 18:8
When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?