Did you grow from the storms in your life?
We all have storms in our lives just as the world we live in has storms. I’ve lived enough places to have experienced hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, flooding, blizzards, ice storms, and sand storms that blot out the sky. I have transited rough seas on large ships and small ones, but to date have not been near a tsunami. I have been to Hawaii several times and always chuckle at the signs that say Tsunami Safe Zone. How do they know? How do they know how big the next giant wave will be and how far inland and to what elevation it will reach?
We all have storms in our lives. No matter how big the storm is or what form it takes, all have one thing in common. We get to chose how we deal with it. Whether it is the loss of trust with a loved one, death, disease, divorce, job loss, extended separation, or persecution; we choose what to do about it.
Storms help shape the way we live. Some rise to the challenges that life throws at them and become stronger and some shrink away—longing for the good old days. Here’s the thing. We live going forward. There is not pushing rewind and no editing once we have lived that second, hour, or day. It’s in the books.
From time to time it is fun, even healthy to reminisce and get a little nostalgic. It is not healthy to live in the past. It doesn’t matter if the experience was good or bad. Dwelling on past achievements or mistakes from an era gone by is not healthy.
Let’s take our first make it count moment.
What do you consider the happiest season of your life?
How often do you think about it or finding yourself wishing you were back in it?
How does your present life compare to it?
Is nostalgia causing you to miss out on present opportunities?
If you only had one month to live, would you be content with the memories that you have or would you engage in making memories with every remaining hour?
Sometimes we lose hope in storms that push our limits. We have difficulty understanding why things are not getting better. We pray, but when God does not fix our situation immediately, we sometimes become bitter or depressed or apathetic. We can’t see beyond the storm.
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We need to trust God in the very heart of the storms in our lives. We need to understand maturity. Winston Churchill said it this way, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
Psychologist John Townsend says that immaturity is demanding that reality adapt to you. Maturity on the other hand, adapts to reality. There is a simple word for this—growth.
Several years ago, I was a counselor in an addictions treatment program run for inmates. This was a level VI program named Lifeline. That meant that the men in the program had failed at every other attempt they had made to be clean and sober. This was a one year program. This sort of change takes not only academic learning and practice, but lifestyle change. In short, this was a very tough program.
There was a special greeting that went with this program. If someone ask, “how are you?” The correct response was, “growing.” To add the kinesthetic dimension to this greeting, clients would place a hand over their head and raise it as you said growing.
As these men struggled to change their lives, they encountered trials and even failures in the program. Sometimes in the midst of the heartache that goes with yet another failure, a man would place his hand on top of his head and just say, “growing.” The current storm would not defeat him. He would learn, grow stronger and more determined, and get back to the commitment he made to change.
As we continue to examine how we weather our storms, let’s consider our cargo. We all have cargo. Some is common and some is considered precious. In a storm where our ship is in danger of sinking, we often must cast over cargo in order to keep from sinking. Cargo that was so precious upon embarkation suddenly goes overboard with no time for remorse. Priorities have changed. Staying alive has become more important than whatever profit we would acquire from delivering the cargo.
Let’s go to a make it count moment about our cargo.
What tangible cargo have you lost in one of life’s hurricanes?
What cargo did you have to intentionally cast overboard in order to survive a storm?
How did your priorities change with the loss of these material items?
If we were down to our last month of life, what cargo would go overboard today?
You have heard the phrase, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. We need an anchor, a rock, something immovable for us to hold onto in a storm. You don’t try to set anchor in a typhoon. It just doesn’t work. So when we speak of an anchor in the storms of life, we need a supernatural anchor. That anchor is God and we know our God through Jesus Christ. Our anchor doesn’t give us peace in the storm—that won’t help. Our anchor gives us peace that goes beyond our human understanding. Our anchor is eternal and cannot be uprooted regardless of the size of the storm. The one constant in all of our storms is Jesus. The variable is whether we trust in him.
I had to go with the French clip below because all of those in English had some colorful excited utterances.
Here are today’s make it last moments. You have already been thinking about these.
1. What cargo would you throw with one month to live?
2. What would go first?
3. How would you simplify your life?
4. List an example of how your faith sustained you in one of your storms.
5. Spend some pray time this day thanking God specifically for sustaining you in one of your storms.
6. What storm do you face today or do you see on the near horizon?
7. Are you growing stronger through it? How?
Don't tell God how big your storm is. Tell the storm how big your God is!
Did you just happen upon this page and wonder what this One Month to Live is all about? Well, you can join in right here on Day 18 or go to Day 1 and march to the beat of your own drum...for 30 days.
If you are in western Oklahoma, check out the Great Plains Challenge. If not, try One Month to Live with an online format.
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