Chuck Swindoll is right. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. As a parent who has buried a child, I am deeply moved by the way Rick and Kay Warren are responding to their son’s death. The first sermon Rick Warren preached after Matthew’s suicide he called, “How to Get Through What You’re Going Through.”
In that sermon he said, “For 27 years I prayed every day of my life for God to heal my son’s mental illness. It didn’t make sense why this prayer wasn’t being answered. When you go through a difficult time, you automatically start to try and find an answer. But explanations never comfort. You don’t need explanations; you need the presence of God.”
Interestingly, both Rick and Kay Warren described having something like a premonition on April 5 before receiving confirmation that Matthew had taken his life. Kay says, “The day Matthew passed away I had this terrible sense of foreboding. Without going into all the circumstances of why, I had a pretty good reason to believe that Matthew had taken his life.”
Kay says that on that day she deliberately chose to wear a necklace with the words “Choose Joy” on it. Choose Joy is the title of the book Kay had written the year previously. She says, “With hands shaking, heart pounding, stomach heaving, not really thinking clearly, but by knowing that by putting it on, I was fighting back against the nightmare that I was pretty sure was going to unfold that day.” Later, as their worst nightmare became a reality, she raised the necklace to her husband. “I raised to Rick,” she says, “in a very tiny, feeble, attempt to affirm that which I really believed to be the truth, that I could ‘choose’ joy even as my heart was shattering into a million pieces.”
Choice, response, is a spiritual discipline we all need to learn. It helps us use life experiences as a curriculum for spiritual growth. Christians will suffer the same hardships as non Christians but we will suffer them differently. We know God doesn’t will evil but he can use it. In this fallen world when our times of trouble come, we don’t ask, “Why did God do this to me?” What believers ask is, “Since this has happened, how can God use it?”
The Apostle Paul models this perfectly for us. In prison, in Rome, cold and hungry, he writes to the Philippians:
“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” (Philippians 1:12-14)
Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond. I challenge us to remember this as we enter a new year. We can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond to what happens to us. Events can give us pain or joy but our spiritual growth is determined by how we respond. Respond well in 2016 to whatever enters your life. Determine to let this be your witness to those who do not know what you know, that God is at work in ways that even we do not fully understand.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Richard Hipps
To start the New Year [2016] I wish to start it on a positive note and use my problems as stepping stones to get closer to my Lord and Savior. Do not waste time on what might have been, or what if I had done something different. Concentrate on listening to what message God is sending, and praying for understanding; then follow His directions. May you be still and listen and healing will follow in God’s own time.
Happy New Year and remember He loves you.
Love you sister. Hope 2016 is a joy-full year for you and yours.