How do you respond to hardship?
Posted on September 9, 2009 by Pastor Tom
None of us “likes” to go through hardship. By nature, we like being comfortable and enjoy easy things. But if I look back over my life, most of my growing came through hardship. However, I didn’t always grow through hardship. Sometimes I chose a negative response that hindered my growth.
I read this week about a man who asked some athletes how they normally responded to hardship. Their responses included fear, anger, self-pity, aggression, despair, abusive behavior, apathy and turning to God. As far as I can see, there’s only one positive response to hardship in that entire list.
But how easy it is to choose one of the other ones. Sometimes we have such an ingrained responses to hardship that we don’t even know our response is negative; like self-pity. Then we follow feeling sorry for ourselves with some self-comfort response like over eating, procrastinating or engaging in some escape activity like hours of TV or computer.
In turning to God, we find one who comforts us in the midst of trouble. Then He enables us to comfort others when they go through trouble. (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Whatever hardships this day or week brings, I need to go to the God of all comfort.
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