I haven’t taken part in the Five Minute Friday challenge for a few weeks. Why? Because, well, life. It kinda gets in the way sometimes. Do you find yourself like that sometimes?
What do you do?
When you find yourself in situations which are hard to cope with, what do you do? Do you give up? Do you reside to the fact you can’t make it through?
Or do you find yourself praying for certain qualities to help you get through? Do you pray for strength? Or patience? Or even self-control?
I find when I pray for traits like these, I’m thrown into a situation that seems near impossible to see through to the end. It tests every part of my being, including my faith.
When I think of this, I am reminded of a particular quote in a film called ‘Evan Almighty’. Evan’s wife is beside herself in a situation with her husband and is contemplating leaving him. As she tries to wrestle with her dilemma, God appears to her and says this:
Through our greatest trials, we will experience our most significant opportunities. Click To TweetLet me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
If we think about it, maybe we already have these traits within us, but don’t realise it. It’s only when we go through the challenges in life do we see we had these characteristics after all. We may find that through our greatest trials, we will experience our most significant opportunities.
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
This was written for the Five Minute Friday Community, where a number of writers gather for a weekly writing challenge around a single word prompt and write to our hearts content, but only for five minutes (or there abouts).
This weeks word prompt is ‘opportunity’. Click here if you want to see what other people wrote. You can also have a go yourself. What do you think of when you hear the word ‘opportunity’?
What a good word! This falls right in line with something I heard recently: “God does not give us character traits; He gives us experiences that build character.” Your post and mine are similar, though mine was more specific. It was hard not to be, as my situation is raw at the moment. I thank God for the encouragement He gave me through your post. –your FMF neighbor #49
Thank you for visiting and I’m blessed to know this encouraged you. Writing from a raw place is hard, but it can be relieving, both for ourselves and anyone who reads. I hope your situation with your son resolved itself. Take care.
I love the Evan Almighty quote! It’s true, I think sometimes we would like God to just instantly develop qualities like patience in us, but he often gives us the opportunity to learn them. It does change our perspective on difficult circumstances to look at them as opportunities for growth.
Yes, it would be nice to be able to snap our fingers and find our situations easier to cope with, but then we would never learn anything, especially when our situations get harder. Thank you for stopping by and reading.
Yes. Yes! YES! Like you I haven’t posted for a long time. I’m so glad you picked up the pen, as it were, and shared your thoughts. Growth is time consuming, tedious, and painful. But when we’ve gotten to the next step it sure is rewarding to find what God has done in us. Praising God for what He’s done in your life. Blessings to you!
Though you so much Vicki for your kind words. Bless you.