“But he (Elijah) himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” – 1 Kings 19:4
Just as storms are an inevitable part of the weather cycle trials are a part of life (Job 14:1). We can’t escape the storms and we shouldn’t expect to escape the trials. The fact is you are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or going into a storm. Anyway you look at it you can expect stormy weather and troubles in life. Everyone is facing something they would rather not experience, but they must. The only choice they have is how they will respond.
Troublesome times are not only difficult and discouraging, they are dangerous. One of the biggest dangers is that we are prone to make mistakes that make matters worse – our problem produces more problems. This can happen in several ways. Here’s some of the most common:
— Depression. Make no mistake about it this is no minor matter. Depression not only makes life difficult, it can put us in great danger.
— Withdrawal. Depressed people tend to crawl in their shell and shut others out. Rather than be with their friends they would rather curl up in a fetal position, suck their thumb, and cry. I’m not making fun of them- we’ve all felt that way. Often the thing we want least is what we need most– being with people.
— Bitterness. In times of trouble we often feel that life is unfair. We believe we deserve more, bigger, and better, and we get bitter when we don’t get it..
— Jealousy / Envy. Peeking out of our dark pit of depression we see others prospering and enjoying life and we feel short-changed. “That ought to be me” we tell ourselves.
— Fearfulness. With a problem looming over us we begin to imagine problems that don’t exist – every cloud looks like a storm cloud. Our reasoning is impaired to the point that we think there is a snake under every rock, a monster around every corner, etc.
— Foolish choices. In trying to get out of our problem we often made decisions that cause us to run headlong into another– a worse problem.
— Distraction from duty. We become so preoccupied with our problem that we focus on our problem rather than our purpose in life. We allow our difficulty to make us derlict in our duty– and feel justified in doing so.( see 1 Kings 19)
— Self-centeredness. Blinded by our bitterness we start thinking we are the only one with a problem. Rather than considering what others are going through our focus is turned inward. Although we don’t know it, we could help ourselves by helping others, but we are more concerned about getting than we are about giving. It’s true that sometimes our problem is so great that it prevents us from rendering aid to others, but no problem should ever blind us to the fact that we all have problems. God help us to pray for one another and do what we can when we can– and do it cheerfully as unto the Lord. — HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
