By Linda Vaprezsan, Pastor’s Wife
Metro Baptist Church
Belleville, MI
Have you ever thought, “Wow, how blessed I am! I am living my dream. Nothing could be better.” Well, if you have, be prepared that there just may be a wrench somewhere with your name on it.
Little did I realize the hard times that were to come my way. The wrenches started dropping into my life, and it seemed they were causing my life to come to a screeching halt. My life’s verse has always been Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Whom do you blame when that wrench gets thrown into your life? Do you blame Satan? He would love to see any ministry hindered. In reality, though, it is God Who planned that you and I would have adversity. Every adversity that comes into your life has a redemption plan behind it. If you are a human being, you cannot possibly live without adversity. We are all dealing with trouble—either headed into it, in the middle of it, or coming out of it. Your adversity has been delivered to you by God. God designed it to bring Himself glory. Don’t forget that God has limited your enemy, Satan.
I have heard of many churches going through tough times during these economic days. Our church, like many others, has seen people leave who did not want to go through the tough times. They move to another state or change churches because that church doesn’t appear to be suffering as much as yours. Or they want to go someplace where the preacher doesn’t preach living a true and holy life. Proverbs 24:10, “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
I take each day as a new beginning. Today is going to be better than yesterday. Of course, sometimes it is worse, but God gives us each day what He knows we can handle. I told a friend of mine that I know God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but my head was pushing on that handle.
I developed an acrostic for the word WRENCH.
W—WAITING
Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” If you do not wait on God, then you will not make it through the hard times.Waiting on the Lord is the tough part when a tragedy happens in your life. But you need to make the most of that tragedy and turn it around for good.
R—RIGHT SPIRIT
Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” It is hard to have the right spirit when things are not going the way you want them. Work daily on renewing that right spirit within you. Is it really that hard to serve God? To me, it all comes down to our own selfish desires. Psalm 100:2, “Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.” Are you serving the Lord in your church? Renew that spirit in you to serve the Lord with gladness.
E—EVERYTHING
I Thessalonians 5:18, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Do you understand everything that God has allowed to come into your life? No, and neither do I! God has allowed it, and I am to try to understand and learn from it.God has blessed us all with so much to be thankful for that sometimes we overlook that and dwell on the negatives.
N—NOTHING
The chorus says, “Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God.” Matthew 19:26 says, “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” Don’t ever give up hope. God wants to do the impossible for you if you would just trust Him.
C—CHOICES
Joshua 24:15, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve….” We make choices every day.Have you chosen to serve the Lord? We can make excuses, but the ultimate choice is ours. What is your life teaching by the choices you have made? Happiness and joy come from making right choices.Let us choose wisely and teach those around us to choose wisely also.
H—HEART
Proverbs 3:1, “My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments.” Your heart is the real you. If someone could look inside you and see the real you, would they see “heart.” Serving the Lord is not possible without heart. Does your family have your heart?
Proverbs talks much about the heart. Give your heart to the man of God so he can guide you. Just like you want to have your child’s heart, so does your pastor want to have your heart.
Wrenches will come into every Christian’s life. If we let the wrench lodge and stop our life completely, we are no longer useful. Sometimes the wrench just gets in the way of the machine’s running smoothly, but it will still run until the wrench is removed. Our attitude should be, “I may not be as useful as I was or as useful as I want to be, but I will continue to run until God removes the wrench or I grind it down until it can no longer be a hindrance to my usefulness.”
