SEASONS OF adversity

When was the last time you had a season of adversity? Of hardship, of pain, of loss, of loneliness, the list goes on. What do you do in that particular season? It’s difficult for what I’m about to say but we need to not just go through them we are to grow through them.

2 Corinthians 12:10

10 “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

In our own lives we to go through seasons. Seasons of fear, loneliness, doubt, heartache, despair, pain, depression. ALL OF THESE ARE Seasons of hardships. In these times we want to hide and run from those problems. 

Here are just a few examples who had seasons of adversity:

Saul chased David for some time, David hid in caves where he wrote most of the Psalms. 

Moses who wandered in the wilderness forty years

Joseph who was sold in slavery

Ruth lost her husband

Nehemiah had to fight off naysayers

Daniel was thrown into a lions den

Paul who while in prison wrote most of the New Testament

Each of these had adversity, but had the choice to let fear and doubt and depression hinder them.

What season are you going through? If you’re on the mountain top soaring high, then awesome. But remember that it’s in the valley of adversity where vegetation grows and where the flowers bloom. There is no growth on top of the mountain but only find rocks and boulders there. On top of the mountain is no place to put down roots, that happens in the valley below. Don’t rush the season you are in child, learn to rest in Him.

SEASONS WILL COME AND GO BUT HIS LOVE FOR US WILL NEVER CHANGE, HIS PROVISION, HIS PROTECTION, HIS CHARACTER OF WHO HE IS WILL NEVER CHANGE. AND HE MEETS US RIGHT WHERE WE ARE AT.

Why is it that we have to go through those tough times in life? If we always experienced the good times we would never be able to know what it means to say “… For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Calvary’s Shadow

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When I was younger, I loved playing hide-n-seek. I don’t mean to brag but I was a great hider. Whenever me and my sister would travel to my grandmothers house for the weekend, my grandmother would always make sure to sneak in a game of hide-n-seek. I was the best at it because I had a sweet spot that no one could find me in.

Years later and I’m grown up and not much has changed. I’m still great at hiding. I’m just not as great as finding my sweet spot. There isn’t one human on this earth that doesn’t know how to hide. We just often fail to hide in the right place.

Where we choose to hide will either lead us to a place of Victory (Jesus) or a place of Defeat.


The Psalmist, David, made huge mistakes. More than once he failed God. He could have hidden behind all of his mess, but he knew where to refuge. He hid himself in the Lord, he hid himself in Calvary’s Shadow.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

  • Psalm 91:1,2

 

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Hiding Place

COME OUT FROM WHERE YOU ARE HIDING

If i were to ask you where your hiding place would be, what would you say? When I was a child, my secret hiding place when I was hiding from my mom, or my sister would be behind the couch, I was so skinny I just slid right behind it, I would probably still fit if i tried that today! Hide and go seek was a favorite game of mine, it was easy, you just hid and hope that they would not find you. For me i would always win, being smashed up against the wall, besides my heavy breathing of near suffocation, I would come out a winner! With getting older and having the wisdom of God in my life, I’ve out grown that phase of my life, but at times I find my self, spiritually speaking, hiding from Him. Without noticing it my fleshly man gets in the way and starts to head behind the couch. Admitting your faults is the first step at an AA clinic will teach you, with a year and a half ministering to the clients of Aquanis, I have come to the reality that the 12 steps are man-made. We get the idea of “I got this” ” I can do this”, when really we should have the mentality of “I can’t do this” “I need help”. We carry a burden most times that don’t need to be carried, the whole time He is speaking to us, lay it down, but we get overwhelmed of how BIG it is. Your outlook will be outcome, we can’t hide from it, give it to Jesus. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

YOU CAN’T BE A WINNER FROM HIDING

Certainty of Israel’s desolation

Amos 9:1-10

 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:
“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
and shatter them on the heads of all the people;
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
not one of them shall flee away;
not one of them shall escape.
“If they dig into Sheol,
from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
from there I will search them out and take them;
and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes upon them
for evil and not for good.”
The Lord GOD of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the LORD is his name.
“Are you not like the Cushites to me,
O people of Israel?” declares the LORD.
“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the LORD.
“For behold, I will command,
and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

COME OUT

– It is impossible to hide from God, the flood that had drowned the Earth, people were climbing to the highest peak on mountains, but still were not high enough to escape the judgment of God. Noah, who preached everyday to the surrounding people telling of the coming judgment, turned an ear and kept on with their content life of pride and selfishness that said there will never be judgment, for i am good. Those who run from God, a fugitive in His eyes of the grace in which Christ offers; will not give in for the cost of their life being served to the King and for the Kingdom. Would rather wait to chance their life with momentary pleasures on the World. When we have spent our life fulfilling the temptations of the flesh, where does that take us? No where, a lost and dying soul that needs to be re-kindled by the purifying fire of God’s spirit. Have we lost sight of the prize? Of what Truth is? We put Him in a box while we search for momentary pleasures only to find nothing. Instead of breaking our alabaster box, we pour ourselves into worthless activities, and complacency which fades out the heart beat of God. Restless, that is what we become when we choose to not wait upon the Lord, for His strength to carry you away into the place where He wants you. In His time He will appoint you to where you need to be in Him. Your spread out, ready to fly, but you choose to go ahead and make the move, your spent from all the energy that it took for you to do it on your own. Wait for His gust, He will come.

– Wherever sinners flee from God’s justice, it will overtake them. Those whom God brings to Heaven by His grace, shall never be cast down; but those who seek to climb thither by vain confidence in themselves, will be cast down and filled with shame. That which makes escape impossible and ruin sure, is that God will set His eyes upon them for evil, not for good. Wretched must those be on whom the Lord looks for evil, and not for good. – Matthew Henry’s commentary