{"id":1108,"date":"2013-07-04T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T23:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2013-07-04T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T23:54:07","slug":"our-darkest-troubles-are-our-greatest-oppertunities-for-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/2013\/07\/04\/our-darkest-troubles-are-our-greatest-oppertunities-for-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Our darkest troubles are our greatest oppertunities for Joy."},"content":{"rendered":"

Our darkest troubles are our greatest opportunities for joy <\/span><\/strong>\u00a0James 1:2-4<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Let us start by saying thank-you to so many of you who have been praying for our family and for our baby girl. This has meant the world to us and we believe the Lord has been working through your prayers.<\/p>\n

As you know our baby girl, due in the first week of Aug has a condition called \u201ctransposition of the great arteries\u201d and has a hole in her heart. This means that the baby will have various procedures and open heart surgery in the first week of birth.<\/p>\n

We are now really only 5 weeks or so away from the birth and operations to come. We do not know how things will turn out or that the operations for our baby girl will be a success, but God is good; he can bring sweet water from a bitter well.<\/p>\n

We wanted to let you know how we are doing, spiritually, emotionally etc. so that you can pray for us and be a part of the great things God has promised to do in us; in all of us.<\/p>\n

I the initial weeks of turmoil, and multiple Dr. visits, there have been tears, sleepless nights and much questioning over the purposes of God; but by God\u2019s grace we have really been experiencing peace and the ability to rest in God purposes for some time now. This is a daily battle. Our worries are many and varied at different times; will this child survive the operations? will it have other genetic defects? what will the little girls quality of life be like? how will this change our lives? will we not be able to return to PNG and the ministry\/people we love?<\/p>\n

\u00a0During a sleepless night shortly after we got the diagnosis, I (Simon) was awake all night, arguing with God (I didn\u2019t win the argument) over the timing, possible outcomes etc. In the wee hours I read a verse that changed my reasoning; I read a wonderful verse that my faith could focus on. It was as if God shouted in my ear, \u201cHear in the middle of this your darkest trial to date, is your greatest opportunity\u201d. The verse I read was in James Ch1 v2-4, \u201c2\u00a0<\/sup>Dear brothers and sisters,when troubles come your way, consider<\/strong> it an opportunity for great joy<\/strong>. 3\u00a0<\/sup>For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4\u00a0<\/sup>So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our faith is \u201cbeing tested\u201d as v3 says, but I had never considered this sickness and baby girl as an opportunity for great things to happen. God started to change our thinking as we read these verses time and again.<\/p>\n

We are finding that God is giving us grace to believe Him and what He has said in His word.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We have found great comfort in Gods promises, let me share a couple with you.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Psalm 127:3 \u201cChildren are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him.\u201d A friend who has had his own share of troubles, reminded us of this verse. God is helping us to see this child is his reward to us, a wonderful gift that will achieve Gods purposes and bring us as much happiness as our other two children.<\/li>\n
  2. James 1:2-4 \u201cDear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed , you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.\u201d We are asking you to pray with us that God would strengthen our faith, so that growth can occur and that we can keep moving towards becoming complete; becoming more like our Savior and more useful in His service.<\/li>\n
  3. I have been stuck in Phil ch3 for some months now and have been learning much and have even taught on this chapter in recent months. Paul\u2019s main purpose in Life outlined in Phil 3 was to \u201cknow and gain His Savior\u201d, \u201cv8\u00a0<\/sup>Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9\u00a0<\/sup>and become one with him.\u201d There are two ways to learn, by expanding our knowledge of God or by experiencing Him, through His power, His sufferings and by being conformed to His death. \u201cv10\u00a0<\/sup>that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In v7&8 of ch3, Paul mentions loss 3 times; notice that loss occurred in two ways, he counted everything as loss, but he also suffered loss.<\/p>\n

    We all may have counted things as loss in our lives; we have gotten rid of things that hinder us from walking close with Jesus. These are hard sacrifices, but good ones, often of our choosing. But what about suffering loss, the type of losses that we would never chose? This is where things are drastically more challenging. Paul\u2019s conclusion was that knowing Christ, was worth choosing to lose things and the joy of gaining Christ was worth suffering the loss of all. Christ was His everything and so, he always had hope, he could always move forward because Christ was his life. (Luke 14:33\/Matthew 13:44)<\/p>\n

    \u00a0How can we carry on, in the worst of circumstances, how can we have hope when we suffer terrible loss in this life? <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    We may well lose things in our lives, good or bad, but if Christ is our life, we do not lose our hope, our joy, our purpose no matter what loss we go through.<\/p>\n

    Praise God for v12 and v13 \u2013 Paul said \u201cnot that I have obtained all of these things\u201d. None of us are ever prepared for loss; we are not and we do not hope for it. In fact we hope that everything will work out great and that after a few weeks in the hospital we will have a healthy baby girl.<\/p>\n

    The reason for sharing all of this with you is that you will pray for us.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray that God would use the Dr.\u2019s and surgeons to heal our baby girl and that she will be a healthy baby.<\/p>\n

    2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray that God will strengthen our faith during this time of testing and that growth will occur in our lives.<\/p>\n

    3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Praise God he has rewarded us with this baby girl. Pray we will remember that she is God\u2019s gift to us.<\/p>\n

    4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray that Christ and knowing him will become more precious to us every day.<\/p>\n

    5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray that God will prepare us for all of the stressful times ahead; that He would strengthen our faith and give us grace and energy when we need it.<\/p>\n

    6)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray God would grace us with being able to continue in His church building amongst the Mengen people.<\/p>\n

    7)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pray we with God\u2019s help will make the most of this opportunity.<\/p>\n

    Job 42:5 \u201cI had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Thank-you for being our friends, and for praying for us.<\/p>\n

    Simon and Annika.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Our darkest troubles are our greatest opportunities for joy \u00a0James 1:2-4 Let us start by saying thank-you to so many of you who have been praying for our family and for our baby girl. This has meant the world to us and we believe the Lord has been working through your prayers. As you know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-prayer-requests","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/simon-flanagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}