Have you ever stopped for a moment and just thought about everything that has happened in your life, the good and the bad? When we take time to do this kind of personal reflection we are usually faced with a variety of feelings and emotions: happiness, joy, excitement, sadness, sorrow, grief, and dispair. It doesn’t matter what country you are from or how wealthy or poor you may be, people are faced with a variety of things in life, both good and bad. This even includes our enemies. Afterall Jesus said that God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). But how do we respond to those things in life?
Are we filled with pride like the person that seems to, according to the world’s standards of a good life, have it all? Are we filled with self-doubt and dispair, like a person that seems like they just can’t catch a break in life and are continually faced with new obstacles? Or do we approach life with humility, thanking God for all that He has done because He is the giver of all that is good and recognizing that God is with us no matter what through the ups and through the downs? “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
Whatever we face in life, if we will remember what the Lord has done and follow Him, we can keep a good perspective even when life does not go our way.
“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).
Derek Broome