Looking Back

"O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.”

                                                                                                                                               Ps 30:7

It is often difficult to recognize the hand of God when you’re on your back inside the cage of life being pounded in the face by adversity. We often feel our heavenly trainer has left us to fight alone. When the Lord allows us to suffer temporary defeat, there will be victories won that we cannot see. You must continue fighting by faith with all you have during these difficult rounds.

God uses these painful rounds to frame our fighting careers to create a change in our nature, not just a change in habits. The difficulty of our fight is often an indicator of the level of calling and influence we will have on other fighter’s in the future. Our losses inside the cage of life are not just for us, but others who will be in our future path of influence. This is not very comforting when you are on your back struggling to get back to up.  However, we must press in to Christ and continue fighting until the eternal bell rings.

It is often later in our fighting careers when we discover the wisdom of God and why He intentionally put us in the cage against adversity. The good fight is best understood when looking back. It is not until we are down the road and we stand in the center of the cage with our hand raised that we can appreciate the difficult rounds God has allowed us to go through.  This is where the following scripture comes alive: "He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light" (Job 12:22). When you begin to realize this, you sit back between rounds and breathe a sigh of relief because you know that your heavenly trainer was in control all along. It didn't seem like it at the time, but He was.

Remember, it is called a fight for a reason.  However, we fight from victory, not for victory. Keep Fighting!