For the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring how we can
make positive changes, what we might call God’s
”
Plan A
”
for our lives. Plan A is simple: we obey what the Bible tells us
to do and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us to change. The main
problem with Plan A, as all of us well know, is we can ignore it if
we choose to (which is precisely why some of us are in the
predicaments we now find ourselves in).
For the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring how we can make positive changes, what we might call God’s “Plan A” for our lives. Plan A is simple: we obey what the Bible tells us to do and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us to change. The main problem with Plan A, as all of us well know, is we can ignore it if we choose to (which is precisely why some of us are in the predicaments we now find ourselves in).
When we refuse to follow God’s Plan A, we get “Plan B” (I feel like Monty Hall on the old Let’s Make A Deal gameshow saying, “Show ’em what’s behind door number 2…”). When we turn our backs on God’s preferred plan, we get one we can’t ignore: God allows circumstances to influence us. For example, I can read a Bible passage that teaches me to be humble and allow God’s Spirit to empower me to do that, or I can choose to remain my big ole ego-driven self and suffer the consequences. I don’t know about you, but God has a thousand and one ways to humble me. Then the truth of Proverbs 20:30 comes home: “Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.” Can you relate to that? We don’t usually change when we see the light, but we often change when we feel the heat from that light.
That is why James 1:2-4 says, “When all kinds of trials crowd into your lives, don’t resent them as intruders but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed and you become people of mature character, people of integrity.” One of the key words in these verses is the word “process.” Even though the Christian life begins with a one-time-only event (the new birth), in its entirety it is a lifelong process of growth and we play an integral role in that process: we must choose to allow God to change us.
In World War II, psychologist Victor Frankl learned one of life’s most important lessons while in a Nazi concentration camp. He said, “One day I was naked and standing in a long line. I had been stripped of my clothing, shoes, jewelry… stripped of every physical possession, yet I realized I had something the Nazis could never take away: my choice as to how I will respond to the circumstances in my life.”
That is ultimate freedom. You can not choose what is going to happen to you this coming week or next month, but you can choose how you will respond to what happens. Will the future make you or break you? Will you become bitter or better? Will it be a stepping stone to maturity or a stumbling block towards failure?
May I offer you a bit of wisdom that has served me very well over the years. What really matters most is not what happens to you, but what happens in you. And that is a direct result of your response to God’s resources. I’ve seen people put in identical situations; some flourish, others perish. Choose to flourish! Claim God’s promise in Romans 5:3-4, “We can be full of joy here and now, even in our trials and troubles. These very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character.”
Note that God says we can be full of joy, not that we will be. It depends on how we respond to the trials in our life. Whether positive change happens or not will be determined by whether we allow God to work the process that develops our character. The Greek word translated “character” in this passage literally means “something that has been proven reliable.” Remember the old television commercial where the gorillas throw luggage against the walls and jump up and down on it? By the end of the commercial we are convinced this product is reliable.
If the truth be known, you and I are going to be thrown up against the wall by life and at times we will feel like we are being jumped on by a two-ton gorilla. It is during these times we will choose whether to respond in a way that will produce the character of Christ in us. Choose to utilize the resources of God’s Word and his Spirit and always remember: what really matters most is not what happens to you, but what happens in you.
