Dealing with Adversity

As we begin the new year I was thinking about what would be a good topic for this blog.  My intention of this blog is to give anyone who reads it "tools" to have better relationships, to learn behavior and thinking to make every part of your being -  spirit, your soul and your body as healthy as possible.

As a counselor/life coach I see probably more problems than most people but I do believe we are in a time in our world that life is more difficult for most people than it has been in the past, at least the past that most of us can remember.

So I thought I would focus a few blogs of how to deal with "Adversity"

What is "adversity?"  Well, Websters says, adversity is:
, trouble, difficulty, hardship, distress, disaster, suffering, affliction, sorrow, misery, tribulation, woe, pain, trauma; mishap, misadventure, accident, upset, reverse, setback, crisis, catastrophe, tragedy, calamity, trial, cross, burden, blow; hard times, trials and tribulations;

Some of these things at one time or another will affect our lives.   Very few people, if any, get through this life without some trials and difficulties and most people have quite a few.

One of the biggest problems that happen when we are faced with adversity, or trials, or troubles, especially if it goes on for an extended amount of time is we can begin to give up or shut down.  Just going through the motions on the outside but inwardly quit.

One of the reasons we as Christians struggle with adversity is we have some wrong thinking about it.

Most of the time when we are struggling through adversity we avoid it, deny it, blame someone else, instead of asking God to use our situation in whatever way He feels is needed, instead of crying out to Him.  We want to be in control of the situation and actually think we are although we absolutely are not.

One of the first steps of dealing with adversity is to admit you need God to help you and you need to cry out to Him when you feel like giving up.  You need to admit your need. You need to face it.

Psalm 34:17-19 17 
The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
  He rescues them from all their troubles.
 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
  he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. 
The righteous person faces many troubles, 
but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.

What is the number one thing you are dealing with?  Are you ignoring it - staying so busy you don't have to deal with it?  Are you blaming someone else for it?

Next post we will talk about once we admit we have a problem, we admit we can't control it, we admit we feel like giving up or we "feel" like we can not take one more thing - what is the next step?