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Handling Adversity

by Jerry Ousley  
11/20/2015 / Christian Living

Hard times; we all have them. Some more than others, still it comes to each of us and can happen at any given time. Sometimes it strikes our finances, other times our health. It can be an assault by other people or can be caused by our own disobedience to the Lord.

I recently went through some adversity. Folks, you've got to understand, I've had a good life when it comes to my health. True, I am somewhat overweight, I don't exercise as I should and I have not been careful about what I eat. Technically speaking I shouldn't be able to enjoy good health as I have. I'm thankful for it.

Sometime ago I was working on websites in my office. My mind needed a break and I thought that doing something physical for a while would be just what I needed. We had recently purchased a used trailer and it had a bad tire on it. We had a tire to replace it with and so I thought that I'd just take some time go out and change that tire. With a lot of effort I managed to get the wheel off and loaded it up in the trunk along with the good tire and took them to the tire shop to be changed. That went smoothly and I had returned and put the wheel back on the trailer.

When I change a tire I always put something under the frame just in case the jack decides it is going to take a break and kicks out. That way, if it did, whatever I was changing the wheel on wouldn't fall to the ground. I had placed a concrete block in the upright position. The tire now being changed I picked up the concrete block to return it to its proper place. Still nothing happened, until I set the block down. From that instant I had the most excruciating pain I had ever known in my lower back. My left leg went numb from my waist to my knee and the pain was also in my hip. What had I done? How could lifting a concrete block result in this much pain? Well, after thinking it over I realized that it wasn't the act of putting the concrete block back where it belonged; no, that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It was all that tugging, jerking and pulling trying to get the lug nuts off.

It turned out that I had pulled a muscle and folks it cost me a good four weeks of not being able to do, well pretty much anything physical. I couldn't even mow my lawn (what a loss).

God used this incident to teach me some things I needed to know. I must admit that because I had enjoyed good health with relatively few sicknesses and injuries that I was a bit hard on other people. It was difficult for me to understand why they couldn't just push through it. Those four weeks were school weeks for me. God showed me a lot of things about myself that I really needed to know.

We all suffer adversity one way or another. It comes in a variety of forms but the bottom line is that it all feels the same. It causes depression, anger, hurt, and pain. I want to go on record as stating that God may allow it to come upon us but He didn't cause it. He may have opened the door a crack and let the devil beat on us a little, or, as in my case, He may just let us do our thing and in fact it wasn't God or the devil but us that caused it. Whichever the case, God will use our adversity to teach us, make us more humble, and show us things that we need to work on in our lives.

No one likes adversity. Hear the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, "We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyedalways carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." Ah, so that's the secret! That's how we get through adversity and that's why we must learn lessons in times of trouble. It isn't that God is putting us through hard times for no reason but that we are learning that by suffering as Jesus suffered we carry the life of Jesus as well the resurrected Lord Who wants to be manifested in our bodies. Of course it's better to be strong and able to work for the Lord, but once we have come through adversity we will only be a more useful tool in the Kingdom!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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