Sep 17 2008
Coming at Life with the Opposite Spirit
This teaching is an excerpt from our Radio Antioch Podcast, Episode 2.
Let’s face it. It is hard to feel like an overcoming Christian when everything is going wrong. Maybe you are sick, or have lost your job…How do you overcome in times like that? I always start by retreating to my “prayer closet”. Go wherever you go to be alone with God. Pray, worship, wait on the Lord until peace comes to you. Talk to the Lord about your uncertainties, things that you are angry about, things that you fear. When you feel the presence of the Lord, wait in his presence a while and just be still. Ask him to heal you wherever you need it, body or soul….Then when you are recharged, you can go back out in to the world. Suppose there are layoffs at your job, and you and others are losing their jobs. Some people, who are in debt up to their eyeballs would be about ready to blow a gasket in this situation. But you are calm and peaceful. Those around you see this, and will sometimes ask how you do it. When they do, you have a real “teachable moment” where you can witness to them. You don’t need to push your faith on them. Just something like “I was upset at first, but the Lord will take care of my family. He has never let me down yet.” This is VERY effective, because instead of pushing your faith, you just talk about where you are. Let them compare your thoughts to how they feel inside, worried, fearful and in turmoil. It is time like these that people realize that they need something beyond themselves.
I had something like this happen to me years ago when I was working on the East Coast. The major company I worked for decided to partially close and downsize the facility that I worked at, laying off hundreds of people, and leaving only a few. It was like there was a cloud of DOOM over the place. Everyone was very upset, and many were worried. It was here that I decided to fight the situation by coming at it with the opposite spirit. Jesus taught this principle in Matthew 5:44:
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you”
In each case, you do something because you are in Christ that is opposite of what worldly people would expect you to do. So when everyone in the office was busy putting their resume on the Internet, I remembered that my boss and I had discussed a new project. I dusted off the proposal, and cleaned it up, saying that I should be promoted, and become the manager of four people to be chosen from the ranks of those being laid off. I sent my proposal off to as many people in management as I could, hoping someone would like the idea. When the local managers heard what I was doing, (Who were also being let go) they got behind it, because I was doing something positive and helping four others that were in the same plight as I was. At first I heard nothing, so I went about looking for a job, and actually accepted a job offer in another state. The day before I was supposed to be laid off, I got news that my proposal had been accepted, and that I was to be promoted and choose four people to be part of my team.
Now, they say that God is never late. (Like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, He arrives exactly when He plans to!) But it has been my experience that God is seldom EARLY either! God could have spared me from being included in the group to be laid off. But instead I had to walk it in faith. I grew during that trial, and learned a lot, got to witness Christ to a lot of worldly people, and then got blessed over and above on the other side! But it all started with going to God as soon as the going got tough, and coming at the problem with the opposite spirit. The very phrase “Overcome the world” implies that we come at life with the opposite thoughts and actions than the world. We are not going with the flow, but against it, carried by the Lord.
The next time you find yourself in a tough situation, try these ideas. Let God show his goodness to you and to those around you. Come at the world with the opposite spirit.
Photo courtesy Chris Seufert, Used with Permission.
This happened to my wife and I recently. We were hauling a camping trailer from central IL to Antioch to try and sell it because we no longer used it. The lug nuts on one of the four wheels on the trailer were not tight and we didn’t know it. While we were driving down route 88 my wife heard a strange noise coming from the trailer. We stopped and inspected it to find the bad wheel. By this time the lug nuts were half way worn through and the holes for the lug nuts on the wheel were warped so badly you could take the wheel off the trailer without loosening the lug nuts. I was furious, I challenged God asking him how could he do this to me?!?!?! My wife kept trying to calm me down and get me to look at the good side of this. She would say look at the trailer and remember all of the good times we had while camping. When I looked at the trailer all I could see was that wheel. We talked to a state police officer and he said he knew someone that might be able to help us. The man that he called owns a towing service and also works at a trailer sales company and works on camping trailers. This man that God had sent to us got our trailer off of the highway and onto his work site all for no charge, he replaced the wheel and the camper now sits at the camping sales place. There is a better chance of them selling the trailer for us. If I had taken the time to pray and give the situation up to God I would have not spent so much useless energy being mad about the situation. Everything happens for a reason and according to God’s plan. He never gives us more than we can handle.