| Photo: julieamarxhausen.wordpress.com |
Tough decisions ahead. Problem. Crisis.
Who says that being in a crisis cannot bring something positive in your life? As you go through life's crisis, you will realize that you are actually stepping on the very moment that changes your life. It may not be as an overwhelming change, but it will always change you, your perspective and your future.
It is tough to look on the brighter side when things are, well, not so bright. But think about what your present crisis is doing to you? It is actually shaping your character. Your character is the most important thing in the world because it is the only thing that you can bring when you face your maker at your life's end.
This Sunday, attending worship service gave me a fresher perspective about crisis. A talk by our main preacher Bro. Arun Gogna told the story of how crisis can bring out something positive in our lives.
" When you have many kind of trouble, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience." - Holy Bible,James 1:2-3
Everyone experiences crisis in life. Not midlife crisis, you're too young for that, but a crisis as the word defines it.
Merriam Webster definition of crisis is :
an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person's life (as in midlife crisis)
or the decisive moment (as in a literary plot) .
Being in a crisis is the time to evaluate how we've lived our life in the past. But crisis is not just about problems and decisions to make. It is a learning process. We can learn so many things while walking through it. And this is the time when a person's character is put to the test.
What can your crisis do to your character?
1. Crisis diagnoses our character.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Nancy Reagan once quoted, "A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."
How do you know if a tea bag will produce delicious tea? You dunk it in hot water. You can not tell the tea's characteristic by just squeezing it, feeling the tea leaves inside the tea bag with your hands, nor by smelling it.
This simple analogy reminds us that being in a crisis and how we deal with it is the true test of character. Life will squeeze us until we can't give anymore, and it will mold our being.We need to be in hot water so that our character will come out What did not kill us made us stronger.
2.Crisis develops our character.
When we were still in school, we remember how many times we need to take an exam or a test before we finally get the correct answer. In some countries, test papers with mistakes are given back to exam takers until they finally perfected the test.
Tests are repeated until the lesson is learned..
A story from Bro. Arun Gogna is the perfect example.
His nephew, Jeff, was at their house all the time when they were little. There were times that he would end up babysitting him. One afternoon, he asked for milk. During those times, milk formula was prepared with hot water, and the bottle would then be submerged in a container of tap or cold water to cool it down. Jeff was already crying and was starting to get impatient. He kept yelling for milk, milk, milk! To stop him as he was starting to annoy him, I gave him the warm bottle of milk and he put it in his mouth immediately. At split second, he took the bottle out from his mouth and he cried hot, hot,hot!
From that time on, he never insisted when someone asks him to wait. He would be patient and he would wait. That was a big lesson for him.
This incident reminds us to be patient with what we want. If we are in a hurry, we could get burned. I have learned a formula to make trials as short as possible. How? Simple. Just go through each and every trouble without actually experiencing the trial. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Another cousin, who was there inside the room with us saw how Jeff got burned because of his impatience, he also learned how to wait. He learned from another person's experience, so he need not go through the same trial in his life.
A painful situation or a crisis would never fail to change a person's ways.
Proverbs 20:30 says that : "Sometimes it takes a painful situation to change our ways. " Why need to wait for a painful situation to change our ways when we can start now? And the biggest question is , why are suffering and crisis allowed to happen?
I had a few realizations recently, and I have learned that our character is more valuable than our comfort. Why? Because our Creator values our character more than our comfort. that is why we sometimes need to walk through trials, to develop our character. When we die, we leave everything here in on earth, our career, our money, our houses and cars. Character is the only thing that we can bring to heaven when we die.
3. A crisis defends our character.
A crisis situation would humble down a person and will bring you to closer to God..
An experiment was made on two frogs. One frog was instantly thrown into a pot of boiling water. The frog's reaction is to jumb back at you. Another frog was placed in a pot of water gradually bringing it to boil. Sooner or later, the frog was swimming back and forth until finally it stopped.
We are reminded that when crisis hits us, we defend our character by simply moving forward.
Crisis is not always a crisis, but an opportunity to be the best who we can be.
an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person's life (as in midlife crisis)
or the decisive moment (as in a literary plot) .
Being in a crisis is the time to evaluate how we've lived our life in the past. But crisis is not just about problems and decisions to make. It is a learning process. We can learn so many things while walking through it. And this is the time when a person's character is put to the test.
What can your crisis do to your character?
1. Crisis diagnoses our character.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Nancy Reagan once quoted, "A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."
How do you know if a tea bag will produce delicious tea? You dunk it in hot water. You can not tell the tea's characteristic by just squeezing it, feeling the tea leaves inside the tea bag with your hands, nor by smelling it.
This simple analogy reminds us that being in a crisis and how we deal with it is the true test of character. Life will squeeze us until we can't give anymore, and it will mold our being.We need to be in hot water so that our character will come out What did not kill us made us stronger.
2.Crisis develops our character.
When we were still in school, we remember how many times we need to take an exam or a test before we finally get the correct answer. In some countries, test papers with mistakes are given back to exam takers until they finally perfected the test.
Tests are repeated until the lesson is learned..
A story from Bro. Arun Gogna is the perfect example.
His nephew, Jeff, was at their house all the time when they were little. There were times that he would end up babysitting him. One afternoon, he asked for milk. During those times, milk formula was prepared with hot water, and the bottle would then be submerged in a container of tap or cold water to cool it down. Jeff was already crying and was starting to get impatient. He kept yelling for milk, milk, milk! To stop him as he was starting to annoy him, I gave him the warm bottle of milk and he put it in his mouth immediately. At split second, he took the bottle out from his mouth and he cried hot, hot,hot!
From that time on, he never insisted when someone asks him to wait. He would be patient and he would wait. That was a big lesson for him.
This incident reminds us to be patient with what we want. If we are in a hurry, we could get burned. I have learned a formula to make trials as short as possible. How? Simple. Just go through each and every trouble without actually experiencing the trial. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Another cousin, who was there inside the room with us saw how Jeff got burned because of his impatience, he also learned how to wait. He learned from another person's experience, so he need not go through the same trial in his life.
A painful situation or a crisis would never fail to change a person's ways.
Proverbs 20:30 says that : "Sometimes it takes a painful situation to change our ways. " Why need to wait for a painful situation to change our ways when we can start now? And the biggest question is , why are suffering and crisis allowed to happen?
I had a few realizations recently, and I have learned that our character is more valuable than our comfort. Why? Because our Creator values our character more than our comfort. that is why we sometimes need to walk through trials, to develop our character. When we die, we leave everything here in on earth, our career, our money, our houses and cars. Character is the only thing that we can bring to heaven when we die.
3. A crisis defends our character.
A crisis situation would humble down a person and will bring you to closer to God..
An experiment was made on two frogs. One frog was instantly thrown into a pot of boiling water. The frog's reaction is to jumb back at you. Another frog was placed in a pot of water gradually bringing it to boil. Sooner or later, the frog was swimming back and forth until finally it stopped.
We are reminded that when crisis hits us, we defend our character by simply moving forward.
Crisis is not always a crisis, but an opportunity to be the best who we can be.
Keep the faith,
-mei
0 comments