Are you having a hard time? A bad time?

Have you had a huge disappointment? An earth-shaking loss?

I wish it were otherwise.

If I were God, you and I would have easy, satisfying, fun lives, without hardship or scarcity.

But I’m not God (duh), and my choices would not be good ones.

Among other things, life would be so easy we wouldn’t grow.

What to do first

Look at your situation.

Is there a problem to address? Then you need to work to solve it.

Are you in a spot where you have to wait and the outcome is uncertain? See How to Wait.

But you may be in a painful situation you cannot change and must bear.

Here are some things to think about when you have to endure something unchangeable:

1. Remember who God is.

Review what you know about Him.

Remember that God loves you.

Remember God’s faithfulness to you in the past.

Remember God knows everything about your hard time. He sees how you’re suffering. He knows why it is happening. He knows the future.

Remember God is in control. He could have prevented your situation. For reasons of His own, He didn’t. But He promises to bring good out of it.

Settle this in your mind. Review and repeat often. Determine to believe.

2. Remember who you are to Him.

You are God’s child, a member of His family (if you believe and have received Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior). (See Becoming a Child of God.)

You are Christ’s (1 Corinthians 3:23).

God is your Father (Matthew 6:9).

God promises:

To bring good out of your hard time (Romans 8:28).

To make you into the image of His beloved Son (Romans 8:29).

To refine you, using your trial to develop your endurance, character, and hope (Romans 5:3-4).

Remind yourself that God keeps His promises.

Remind yourself of your eternal future.

3. Decide to trust Him.

Decide to trust Him, even though you don’t understand, even though you are miserable.

“I don’t understand, but I know You are righteous, wise, and sovereign, and that You never make a mistake.”

He has promised to never leave you or forsake you. He is there, with you, in your hard time (Hebrews 13:5).

“Trust in Him at all times … Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8).

4. Pray about what to do.

What are your goals in getting through this? What is success in this hard spot?

One goal is to endure to the end. Be faithful.

Check your attitude. Your loss or other big problem is not the only thing going on in your life. Don’t focus just on what you don’t have, but on what you do have. (See 2 Corinthians 4:18).

Don’t dwell on the bad, repeating it over and over, making it foremost in your mind. Don’t make it worse with worry. Today’s trouble is enough.

At the same time, don’t deny your sorrow, your suffering, your feelings. God does not tell us to deny reality. Be realistic. Instead, we are to rejoice in our suffering. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Determine to praise Him anyway. Praise Him for His faithfulness, His sovereignty, His righteousness, His love. Habakkuk rehearsed in his mind how bad things were going to be and planned to praise Him. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

Determine to glorify Him in your hard time. You have an opportunity to show others by your words and actions that you trust Him. Don’t waste the opportunity.

You can

You are God’s child. He is with you. He is for you. You can get through it, honoring Him on the way.

Press on.

Have you had bad times?

What has worked for you in getting through it?

Do you believe God?

I’m not asking if you believe in God.

I’m asking if you believe what He says.

Who or what is your authority for how you interpret what is happening:

To you?

To your loved ones?

To your country?

To the world?

Do you test what you believe?

How do you test?

What standard do you use?

Do you believe your inner voice?

Or

Do you believe what God says?

For example

Do you believe:

I’m worthless. I’ll never amount to anything.

Or do you believe God:

You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10).

Do you believe:

This bad thing must mean God is punishing me.

Or do you believe God:

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1).

Do you believe:

I’m all alone.

Or do you believe God:

You are chosen by God, adopted by Him. You are a child of the King. (Ephesians 1)

We will be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We need to replace the lies we tell ourselves with God’s truth.

Here is how:

1. Become conscious what you are saying to yourself.
2. When those thoughts are other than positive or neutral, stop yourself and challenge them.
3. Compare those thoughts with God’s Word.
4. If the thoughts are at odds with the Bible, chose to believe God.
5. Replace lies with what God says.

Underpinnings

In order to do this, you need to know what God says. You have to know the word of God. If you aren’t studying the Bible, decide to do so. Read. Study. Memorize. Meditate.

The better you know His word, the more you’ll tell yourself the truth.

Decide to stop lying to yourself.

Gram’s heart was broken. When another adult daughter died, she wailed: “What did I do so bad to deserve this?”

It was a body-blow pain.

Explaining your pain

We’ve all  hurt. How we explain pain determines much about how well we handle it. We can speak truth to ourselves. Or we can tell ourselves lies.

Here are some choices:

1) My behavior determines whether good or ill happens to me.

Job’s “friends” believed Job’s calamity was caused by Job’s sin.

Job also thought sin caused disaster, but thought he was innocent and couldn’t understand why the Lord allowed it.

Elijah said he’d been zealous for the Lord and couldn’t understand why bad things were happening to him.

2) I sinned and these are natural consequences of my behavior.

3) I live in a fallen world where sin, injury, problems of nature, and death are part of life. I am a sinner and I live with sinners. I don’t like it, but this is reality.

We must tell ourselves the facts of life:

1) I am a sinner living in a fallen world. I should not be surprised at fiery trials.

2) If I got what I deserved, I’d be dead. I am not entitled to only good things.

3) Life is not about Me. Don’t look at everything through the capital “M,” “Me.” Christians are God’s servants. How we handle suffering is a powerful testimony.

4) God is Sovereign. He is in control of this situation. I am His child (Make sure that is true. See Becoming a Child of God.) He has a loving purpose for this.

If we think we don’t deserve it, we have two things to cry about:

1) The pain itself, and

2) The belief that the pain is unfair.

Nothing is so certain as suffering. Plan now how to deal with it.

1) Ask yourself: How do I glorify God in this?

2) Ask yourself: Is there something I need to do?

3) Trust in God and make Him your refuge.

What have you learned from suffering?

Do you have tips for the rest of us?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” Yogi Berra

If you don’t care where you’re going, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland

On the other hand, if you want to be intentional about how you live, and you care where you’re going, then

“Begin with the end in mind.” Stephen Covey

Life vision

As we start a new year, this is a great time to become clear about your life’s vision. Where do you want to end up? What do you want people to say about you when you’re gone? What do you want written on your tombstone?

Your life vision should be:

Emotionally compelling

Personally meaningful

Inspiring

Enduring

Guiding

Consistent with your core values

It will help you decide what to do—or what not to do. Goals flow out of vision and mission.

Examples

Paul

Paul’s personal vision:

“[To] know [Christ Jesus Christ my Lord] and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).

To see Paul’s passion, read his entire statement (Philippians 3:7-14).

Paul’s “niche” was to be a minister and witness, and to open the eyes of the Gentiles. (Acts 26:15-18)

Here is how Paul evaluated himself very near the end of his life:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Ezra

Ezra “set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).

Luke

Luke said: “it seemed fitting for me, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out … in consecutive order …” (Luke 1:3).

John

John’s wrote his gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).

What about you?

If you haven’t already done this, spend some time the next few days prayerfully thinking about what you want your end to be. (See But What Are We to DO? and Spiritual Self-Appraisal.)

Your life vision is your base. Goals flow from that.

Then your path becomes much more clear.

And you have much more energy for the journey.

It’ll give you a good start for the New Year.

Do you have a vision for your life?

How does that vision affect your day?

What advice do you have for those developing their own vision?

The end of the year is a good time to slow down and take stock. As the sun sets on 2014, how do you think you did?

STOP!

I can hear many of you, just like me, shift into critical mode. We can be our own worst enemies.

But if you believe in Jesus Christ, have put your trust in Him, here is what Almighty God says to you:

“I love you.”

God loves His children because He chooses to. We cannot earn His love, even by scoring an “A+” on our 2014 assessment.

Some things to remember

God is working in you so that you want to do His will and actually do His will. That is His responsibility. (Philippians 2:13)

God is able to keep us from stumbling. (Jude 24)

One day we will stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. (Jude 24)

Isn’t that exciting? Reassuring?

Our responsibilities

But we have responsibilities too. For example:

We are to abide in Christ. (John 15:4)

We are to love one another, just as Christ has loved us. (John 15:12)

We were created for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

Look back

Now, look back at 2014 through His love for you.

What would the Lord like you to do more of?

What would He like you to do less of?

What makes you grateful?

What inspires you?

My story

I did an annual self-appraisal as part of my annual work performance review. I let my boss know how I thought I was doing.

A number of years ago I realized wasn’t doing anything similar with my real Boss. I began an annual process of spiritual self-appraisal. Of course, it isn’t really me appraising myself. It is a two-way process where I reflect and pray and hear from the Lord.

There are many ways to do this. Searching on “self-assessment” and “self-appraisal” generated nearly 50 million hits!”Spiritual Self-Appraisal” generated more than 200,000 hits.

As a thought-starter, here is what I do:

First, I start by reviewing the past year. I quickly read through my journal. Look at my calendar. What seemed to go well? What didn’t go so well?

Second, I look at my annual goals. Did I complete my goals, or at least make progress?

Third, I compare all of that to my over-all vision for my life.

As I do this, I listen for the Lord’s voice and take notes.

Fourth, I use the New Testament to challenge myself. For example:

Have I relied on Him more during the year than the previous one?

Did I grow in the knowledge and love of God?

Was I of service to others?

Did I love my neighbor as myself?

I usually hear the Lord point out areas that are pleasing to Him and areas I need to work on. I pay attention to what makes me grateful or inspired. And, then, this starts me thinking about where I should focus in the next year.

What about you?

Do you review the closing year?

What is your method?

Has the Lord spoken to you?

When young children were asked what they wanted to get for Christmas, they gave many answers with great energy. Then, when they were given a choice of a big chocolate or a small chocolate, most took the big candy, leaving the small one for their companion.

When, instead, they were asked what presents they wanted to give, they also had answers. But then most took the small candy, giving the big chocolate for their companion. (See Does Santa Make You Selfish?)

Getting

What are you getting for Christmas?

God’s life-changing present for us isn’t under the tree. He gave us His Son. Our Savior is born.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

Believers are justified as a gift. (Romans 3:23–24)

Believers are given living water. (John 4:10)

As a free gift, believers are given eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

Believers receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

Giving

What are you giving this Christmas?

There is no remotely equivalent gift to give Him. God the Father gave His Son. The Son gave Himself.

In fact, everything is His. All we can do is give back to Him what He has already given us.

“For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given you.” (1 Chronicles 29:14)

The closest we can come to matching the gift God gave us is to give Him ourselves, using our time, talents and resources for His service, for His glory, to love our neighbor

What are you giving this year?

Is there a present under the tree for Jesus?

Great Joy

Jesus Christ is born! Hallelujah!!

Good news of great joy for all the people. (Luke 2:10)

The spiritual blessings are overwhelming. Immanuel, meaning “God with us” was born to save us from our sins. He was born for us a Savior. (Isaiah 7:14)

This is God’s solution to our problem: our sins separate us from God. If we don’t receive Christ, we’re eternally separated from Him. But if we receive Christ, we are rescued from darkness and live in God’s marvelous light. Adopted into God’s eternal family. (See Becoming a Child of God.)

But Not All Joy For Everyone

Christmas, especially in this culture, is a mixture of spiritual, family, and secular elements. It’s easy to have the busyness of decorating, cooking, and gift buying overwhelm the spiritual.

And for many, Christmas is a time of overwhelming sorrow, when dreams clash with reality. Many do not have family or have problem families. Or there is no money for the trappings of the day. Many don’t have a place to go. Many aren’t invited to the party.

You’re Invited

Do you want to be gathered around the tree? You can.

Do you want to be invited to the dinner? You are.

You are invited to the celebration.

You are invited to the family gathering.

Are you on the inside? Do you know you are part of God’s family?

Open Invitation

Everyone is included in God’s invitation.

Jesus says: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” (Revelation 22:17)

Invite Others

Is there someone outside pressing their nose against the window?

Is there someone you need to invite?

You’re invited.

Pass it on.

Wicked reveals things that happened before the events described in The Wizard of Oz. The Hobbit is about events before the Lord of the Rings. Both are described as prequels.

The prequel to Christmas is John 1:1-3 and Philippians 2:5-8.

Jesus Christ is God and has been God from the beginning and has been with God from the beginning. Everything came into being through Him.

But, even though He was and is God, He didn’t regard that as something to assert. He was willing to be born a baby, to be a bond-servant. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So here is the prequel to both Christmas and Good Friday.

Think about it! Jesus Christ, God the Son, was born a baby. He willingly set aside equality with God in order to become a bond-servant, to be obedient, to die.

We tend to focus on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. His sacrifice started with laying aside equality with God. His sacrifice continued with being born a baby. And continued with obedience. And continued with His death on a cross.

It is all one piece.

The motivation? God’s love.

What an awesome God!