I was sitting in the line at a drive-through window this morning at 5:35 AM waiting for my food (okay, it wasn’t fruit and granola). . .when I heard the radio announcer say that bankruptcies are 25% higher this year than last.
My heart was grieved then, and it’s still grieving now some two and one-half hours later. As I was finishing my morning meditation time with the Lord, He directed me to 2 Corinthians 1:4 in the Message Bible.
If you’ve experienced financial loss … and who hasn’t … in the current political and economic environment. . .you may be one who is saddened because of a lost job or home and you may be upset because you’ve lost $500,000 in the stock market.
Everyone’s loss is great to them. I’m not led to discuss which loss is greater. . .perhaps in another blog … but this morning, the Lord wants me to bring 2 Corinthians 1:4 to you.
“He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.”
First, God wants you to know that no matter what you’ve lost, He has a plan. I’ve read letters and emails where believers, and I mean very good people, are bemoaning their loss, questioning their faith and asking why God is not moving in their midst. . .why He didn’t save them from their loss.
The thing to realize is. . .first, foremost and forever. . .no matter what you’re going through. . .you have the confidence, the assurance and the scriptural guarantee that God will come alongside of you. . .that He will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:4). He is our ever present help in the time of trouble (Psalm 46:1).
This next statement is going to seem hard to understand and even more difficult to implement but we must get our focus off us, our loss, our pain. . .and instead, fix our focus on Him. . .and how we can bring glory and honor to His name in the midst of what we’re facing.
The questions should be. . .God, what can I learn in the midst of this attack? How can I use my experiences to grow? Does God want me to comfort and counsel others who going through the same valley that I’ve just passed?
The rest of verse four says, “… before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.”
Instead of feeling the loss of the moment, anticipate the opportunity of being used by God to comfort and counsel those whose faith may not be as strong as yours, those who have become weakened in the battle.
What God is saying to us this morning, is that we need to get our focus off our loss and pain and place it squarely on Him and His divine purpose for our lives.
It hurts to lose something of value, something you’ve traded your live for. . .but the bottom line is this: the only reason you had it in the first place is because of Him. We must never forget from where all blessings flow. I know this from experience.
I remember living in a 3,500 square foot house on the 10th hole of the only PGA sanctioned golf course in the eastern part of North Carolina. The house was designed by an architect. It had moveable walls, twenty sets of sliding glass doors, dozens of Dogwood trees in the backyard and it was located in the most prestigious development in our part of the state.
Sitting in my driveway was a brand new Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz with a stainless steel top that I had won by building the best sales organization of any state in the nation for a particular insurance company. I also had a new Lincoln Continental for my wife.
Without dwelling on the past and what happened. . .let me say, I lost it all. It was a combination of the devil and my ignorance in not seeing him coming. But that’s a later blog . . . I don’t want to lose the focus of what I feel the Lord is saying to us right now.
Bottom line, I understand the sentiments experienced in 2 Corinthians 1:9,10 MSG:
“We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened.”
I never felt like I was going to death row, because I realized that “they” couldn’t repossess my wife and children or eat me (because cannibalism is illegal in the United States). But most importantly, God had my back.
It’s important to keep loss of “things” in a proper perspective.
In the midst of the storms you’re facing. . .the troubles you’re traveling through. . .you’ve got to know. . .that you’re not alone. . .He’s there so He can comfort you and you can comfort others.
My experiences of 25 years ago have helped me encourage thousands, if not hundreds of thousands to know debt is evil and that no matter how bad things are God can and will bring you out.
Here’s the remainder of the verse, “Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation.”
You will escape your current loss or situation not by your strength or wits. . .but by trusting God totally. . .He is your ultimate salvation.
Some might think, “But Brother Harold, I’m not dead.” That’s true, but your finances may be (naturally speaking).
The same resurrection power that brought Lazarus from the tomb and raised Jesus from the dead. . .is available to you.
God has rescued you in the past and He will continue lifting you up out of the messes of this life. . .the resurrection power of the Holy Ghost is available to you. It’s there to resuscitate your finances. . .but as the scripture say “you and your prayers are part of the rescue operation.”
So it’s important. . .it’s necessary. . .that as you travel this highway of life that you not become financial road kill. . .but a worker, a servant who’s reaching out to others with words of inspiration and encouragement. . .nothing negative. . .just the pure the powerful and the positive from the Word of God.
And the last sentence in 2 Corinthians 1:11 says, “I don’t want you in the dark about that either” or as it says it in the King James, “God doesn’t want you ignorant….”
Think about it.
Harold Herring is President of the Debt Free Army, an organization he co-founded with Brother John Avanzini. He is also the new President of Millionaire University.
Tags: 2 Corinthians 1, Brother John Avanzini, Debt Free Army, God will protect you, hard times, Harold Herring, Hebrews 13:4, insurance sales, job loss, Lazarus, Millionaire University, resurrection power, stock market loss, storms of life, what to do in the midst of an attack
