Past Challenges: Setup for Your Future Successes
Weekly Words of Inspiration
As I read the hundreds of social media posts welcoming in the new year, the consistent theme for many of those messages was their overwhelming desire to put 2016 behind them. I equate that to mean that this past year brought with it many unwelcomed and unforeseen challenges. And thus, a large number of people are apparently anticipating that 2017 will bring greater in all of the areas that 2016 failed to deliver.
Interestingly enough, however, at the start of 2016, the same posts filled the same pages for many of the same people. But seemingly, it didn’t live up to its early projections.
Well, this week, as we leap forward with new expectations for this new year, consider that the challenges of 2016 were there to inspire you to develop new strategies to succeed in 2017.
Therefore, consider your 2016 challenges as the precursor for your 2017 successes.
Throughout last year, like many of you, I was also presented with some problems that seemed too big to face and some questions that seemed too hard to answer. But because of the great mercies of God, we are all on the other side of them and we can confidently proclaim that everything we learned in 2016 has better prepared us for whatever lies ahead in this new year.
I know this sounds cliché, but these are the challenges that will result in our greatest opportunity for growth on so many levels. Imagine that, we just experienced a growth spurt!
Many of the most impactful and life altering decisions that we’ve made have come on the heels of when we’ve taken time to reevaluate decisions or to reassess our response to some of the challenges that were presented. Many of the situations that we kept hoping would change last year, haven’t changed at all. But they came that they might change us. A Holocaust survivor by the name of Viktor Frankl, who gave many lectures and authored several publications on the meaning of life is credited with this famous quote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation… we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Every situation that the Lord has allowed in our life had the potential to move us one step closer to what He sees in us and who He is waiting on us to become. Without these challenges, there would have been no motivation to change and no motivation to dig deep enough to see what lies beneath our surface.
What did 2016 motivate you to do? Study more, pray more, save more, exercise more, eat less, love more, judge less, hug more, forgive more….
Whatever 2016 brought out of each of us, I declare that it is the very thing that has prepared us for the next blessing and the next successful encounter that awaits us in this new year.
Embrace the Challenges and Celebrate Your Success!
“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” James 1:12
