Podcast Episode 19 – Dealing with Your Circumstances (part 2)

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “Dealing with Your Circumstances.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you struggled with compromise or conformity? That’s the ongoing question we are talking about in this series.  Today’s discussion is the second in the series, all based on a study of Daniel chapter 1 and corresponding to the articles posted on the Leadership Ezra website.  The big idea we will be discussing is how you can navigate pressure – specifically, the pressure to compromise or conform in an unhealthy or immoral way – without deviating from your values.  It’s really going to be a discussion of how to lead and live with excellence without compromising your faith.  And today, that begins with an understanding of how to deal with your circumstances.

When my wife had been married for a little over 20 years, we experienced a crisis point in her health.  At that time, we had a child in college and a child in high school, and her health had been in a state of decline for about 10 or 15 years, but without any clear conclusions or answers about why.  She had seen numerous specialists, and at different times had received different diagnoses with different treatment plans, and yet her health continued to deteriorate.  But then she began to see a new doctor, a general practitioner, who had an investigative nature.  As she started to get a better understanding of Nora’s health and issues, she also started digging for information.  Eventually, she sat down with us and informed us that she believed that Nora had an undiagnosed cancer that might be at the root of many of her health issues.  This doctor started the process of testing and searching, and the end result was the discovery that Nora had neuroendocrine cancer, with a large tumor in one of her lungs, and emergency surgery was scheduled to remove the tumor and most of the lung.  We later learned that this type of cancer wreaks havoc on your endocrine system, and therefore is often misdiagnosed as a variety of other things.  I am grateful for a doctor who refused to accept the status quo and was determined to discover why things were happening as they were.  But let me back up to the moment in time in that process when Nora began to cough up blood, and her doctor scheduled an immediate scan of her lungs.  I can still picture us sitting in the radiology waiting room of the hospital, by ourselves after everyone had gone home, and the doctor calling us immediately to say that Nora had cancer and we needed to do surgery.  At that moment, we had a decision to make on how we were going to respond.

The point of this story is that we often have no control over the circumstances that surround us in our lives.  Those circumstances may have a physical cause (like Nora’s cancer), or they may be caused by our own choices, by someone else’s choices, simply by our environment, or by God for a purpose.  Regardless of the cause, no one controls our response other than ourselves.  We decide how we are going to react and what we are going to do.  In that moment with Nora, as a husband and wife committed to honoring God in our marriage, we made the conscious decision to trust and thank God regardless of whether we understood what was happening and why.  We chose not to let that bombshell blow up our lives but instead to live in faithful confidence that God loved us unconditionally and would use these circumstances for good.

That’s the lesson that Daniel modeled in Daniel Chapter 1.  He had not personally been unfaithful and disobedient to God, even though much of his nation had been.  Therefore, when his nation and the capital city of Jerusalem received judgment from God, Daniel was included as a recipient of that judgment even though he was not guilty.  He was taken from his home and family and carried away in captivity, and he had no say or control in those circumstances.  However, when you read his story, you see that he chose to respond with trust in and obedience to God.  He determined his own response and let God manage everything else. The same is true for you.  Regardless of the circumstances, whether good or bad, you are responsible for how you respond to those circumstances and how you respond to God.  God is responsible for doing what is best with those circumstances, circumstances for which He has a purpose to accomplish.

Here’s what you need to take away:  You have very little control over many of the circumstances that occur in your life.  You do, however, have control over how you will respond when those circumstances occur.  Nothing that happens takes God by surprise, and Romans 8:28 assures us that God will bring good even out of the worst things (note:  that doesn’t necessarily make those things less painful when they happen).  If you believe that God is who He says He is, and that the Bible is true, then you get to decide to respond in complete trust in God’s work in your life. 

The bottom line is that your response to your circumstances falls squarely on your own lap.  When circumstances seem outside of your control, lean into God, trust Him, and let that trust settle your fear, anger, or anxiety.  When difficult circumstances seem like they are going to overwhelm you, as my dad would say, “You can be better or bitter, but better is better than bitter.”