When people think of you, what are their first thoughts? Is it your good works, your looks, the bad things you’ve done, or the relationship you have with Jesus? How about the circumstances you have had in your life? Do those tell people who you really are? Do your circumstances control how you act and what you think? What really defines who you are?
A young man we met while living in Knoxville, Inky Johnson, made the following statement. “I made a vow to myself, to never let a situation or circumstance define my life” This young man played for the University of Tennessee, but suffered a life-changing injury during a game. All his dreams of being a pro football player became nothing but a memory. He had grown up in the worst section of Atlanta, and football was his ticket out. So, what now? He could have become bitter and depressed and moved back home to follow in the footsteps of so many in his neighborhood, who were existing by selling drugs. Instead, he chose to move forward in his life with his faith as his guide. His life verse is Jerimiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” The English standard version translates it like this, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” His accident, nor his handicap defines who he is. His past does not define him. It is his relationship with Christ, and all that stems from it, that defines him. He is now a greatly sought-after motivational speaker. God had another plan.
If we look at Jerimiah 29:11 in its context, we will see that God was not telling them all their pain and suffering was over and everything would be wonderful from now on. The Israelites were in exile as a punishment from God for their disobedience. Before Jerimiah gives them the promise in verse 11, he tells them in verse 7, that they should pray for the city that had captured them. They should pray for it to prosper because if it prospers you will prosper. It would be 70 years before they would be allowed to go home. They were to live in their circumstances of slavery, but not allow it to cause them to be bitter or depressed. Their God would sustain them, and they were to worship him the same as if they were in their homeland. Their circumstances were not to define them.
We need to understand that God may take away our suffering, but more importantly, he wants us to have hope in the middle of it. God wants us to be defined by who he is and the effect he has on our lives. Are the effects he has on you seen by others as humility, compassion, love, obedience, and patience? Don’t allow your circumstances to dictate how you will act. If you are focused on serving God and your hope is in Him no matter what the trial, you can still praise Him.
Job is a perfect example of not allowing our circumstances to define us. Job 1:1 tells us he was an upright and perfect man, not perfect as we think, but he was a mature Christian. His first objective in life was to please God. When trouble came, he showed in Job 1:21 that God was in control and he expected nothing but still praised the Lord.
Job 1:21 “And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
No matter how bad the circumstances may be or how much others sought to get him to curse God and die, he did not waver His relationship with God defined him!
Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.”
