Endurance Through Bad Times

IBS Tuesday February 2

Luke 21:19

“By your endurance you will gain your lives.” 

Through endurance I can gain life. What this verse reminds me is that through trials and tribulations, there is a way to win the battle for my soul. I do not have to be taken down by bad circumstances.

In my own life, I have gone through trials which have tested my faith. No matter how bad the situations, I have always had the choice to either give up or keep going. My dad once had a successful business and was making a lot of money. I remember how easy my life was in those years. I was living a very privileged life and got to spend my days doing what I wished, isolated from the realities of the world. But about 8 years ago my dad’s business had come upon hard times, and he was unable to keep it under control and had to downsize the company which he eventually shut down. My life had changed dramatically. We had to move out of our large home and lay aside the comfortable life we once had. My parents took me out of private school and I couldn’t spend the time I used to on my hobbies. During that time, I grew closer to God. I realized that my circumstances didn’t mean God was punishing my family, but that God wanted to get me to realize something. I knew that I couldn’t endure this time of my life if my eyes where not set on Jesus. When I was taken out of my family’s isolation, I had to face the world. I had many temptations and opportunities to give up the good fight and give in to the things many of my friends had been consumed by like drugs, profanity, and low standards, but I chose to keep resisting the devil when I was being hit from all sides and go to Jesus for my strength. During that time, while my family had a lot of tension and I lost close relationships, I chose that I would not give up on Jesus. Thankfully my family has recovered, and we have grown tighter than we ever were before. But God prepared me during those years of tribulation for the much greater tribulations that are to come.

Application: While my life is on the positive, I will make sure that I am preparing for when those difficulties in life do come, because I know they will or else God wouldn’t be preparing me. I know that I will need good people in my life and an especially strong dependence on the Lord when I go through the trials, so one thing I can begin doing now is to start developing those relationships that will help me endure when the trials do come. How? Today I will pray for relationships and accountability in my life that will be my parachute for when I do come upon difficult times and also that I can be that help to others as well. Also, I will seek out my teachers’ and pastors’ advice about how they endured the bad times.