You Don’t Have To Settle For Second Best!

One of the greatest battles we fight every day is in the area of our mind. For those of us who have suffered setbacks and failures, we know how hard it is to regain confidence. The sad truth is that too many times we allow our failures to define us. Our mind tells us to quit trying; it tells us that we are not good enough. We often buy into that lie and start to doubt ourselves and our abilities.

Some people become an ostrich in the face of adversity. They say, ‘This is too much for me, I can’t cope.’ They feel so overwhelmed and like the ostrich, they bury their heads in the sand and would not face the harsh reality of their situation. For them it is too much, it is too painful! So retreat is the best way to cope with the pressure.

The Bible tells us that Jonah ran away from God and wanted to quit even before he started his assignment. He thought that if he ran away and hid in a far place, he would be okay. In Jonah 1:1-3 we read how Jonah ran from the Lord. He got on the ship and sailed away to escape. But God never let go of him.

God loves us no matter how many times we fall. Just like a parent tenderly picks up a little child who is learning to take his first steps, God is there to pick us up when we fall and help us to rise again. He will not leave us in our darkest moments and He certainly will not let us stay down.

Even when we do not believe in ourselves God still believes in us. It is only God who knows how hard it is to get up when you fall down or when others put you down. He is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful and therefore we attribute Him as Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent. What a revelation! This insight is sure to lift the heaviest spirits that plague our mind. We have HELP, a source that is greater than our problem, greater than our situation and greater than our feeble minds.

When we catch the cosmic picture, our minds that sought to control and bring us down because of who we think we are and what we have become, fades into a miniature object. To imagine that the Creator of the universe cares for us and does not want to see us hide like the ostrich, is something incomprehensible in human terms. But it is true because He sent us the greatest love letter in John 3:16.

We don’t have to run and we don’t have to hide. As we surrender to God, our Heavenly Father, He reaches out and calms our stormy seas, soothes our troubled mind and helps us see ourselves the way He sees us. What an assurance and what a hope we have for our future! We have reason to lift our head up high again! ◊

Linda Pearl