Do you ever hear something that convicts you so deeply that it disrupts your entire day? The other day, I was listening to a radio show where they were discussing a couple that had recently been handling some very difficult health issues. The wife had been hospitalized for cancer treatment and then a week later her husband had a heart attack and was hospitalized. Their pastor came to visit and told the wife that he had been praying for them. The wife thanked him and asked if he could tell her exactly what he had been praying. He replied that he had been praying that God would give them both strength and peace during this time. The wife then asked the pastor, “Can you pray that I don’t waste this?” Meaning that this trial had come across her path and she did not want to miss what God was trying to teach her through it. Just WOW! I was in awe of that kind of insight IN THE EYE OF THE STORM she was living through at that very moment.

“Pray that I don’t waste this” REALLY got my attention. I always pray that God leads me. I pray that God gives me strength to endure whatever circumstance I am trying to tackle and overcome, but I rarely pray that I would not waste the struggle I am facing. How about you? I truly believe that God keeps giving us the same lessons until we learn the value embedded within them…which may very well explain a lot of my life. I was a little too hard headed to get many of the lessons the first time around. I hope that over the years I have learned a little faster and had to endure less of the same lessons to get things through my thick skull, but the jury is still out on that one. Could we be more aware, more intentional in those times of despair? Instead of being sucked into the uncertainty, fear, or potential depression; could we be so present in seeking what God has for us that not a second of the trial was wasted? I definitely need to be praying intensely into this attitude of intentionality instead of getting sidelined by anxiety. How about you?

I challenge each of us to enter into our challenges with a mindset of learning what God would have for us through each trial. Maybe if I am seeking after the growth of the situation instead of being consumed by the pain of the circumstance I can learn to trust God through ANY situation. I enlist you to shake off the pain and fear of the moment and get down to understanding what God’s will is in the trial. If there doesn’t seem to be any rational, then I confront you to simply pray for God’s will to be done and find peace there. When everything is going all wrong according to the world, we know we can trust in God’s plan.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. ⁶ Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

No matter what, I can trust my all-loving Father God and for that I am literally, eternally grateful. If we can find no other reasoning, we can rest in God’s peace and not waste the difficult moments. Even the simple act of trusting God through the storms encompasses a massive opportunity for growth and peace. We can trust God with everything that is out of our control….clearly we can’t influence what we have no control over anyway so we might as well believe in confidence that God is handling it. Period! Trust. Rest. Pray that we Don’t Waste This.

Ephesians 5:15-17 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. ¹⁶ Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. ¹⁷ Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.