We experienced a great tragedy in our home last week. One of our miniature horses had her baby colt in the middle of the night. It couldn’t free itself from the plastic-like sack it had been formed in for the past 11 months, and it suffocated and died. Our daughter, Brandi is the animal lover of the family, and the experience crushed her soul, bringing on uncontrollable weeping. She said: “I’ve lost so many animals!” It truly broke our hearts. Life is so hard, and a harsh reality is that suffering is a part of life we need to expect, and prepare for.
Every living thing on this planet is suffering because sin is, and suffering is, and Satan is. These three facts of life must be factored into our thinking: “Take captive every thought” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV). The Revised Standard version of the Bible says: “take every thought captive.” This is a matter of personal responsibility. It is up to us how we allow ourselves to think. Join me right now, and let this become your belief, and your attitude by saying: “I must take charge of my thinking!” God cares about everything we go through. He is aware of it, and He is always there to go through it with us: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). God is faithful. We don’t know why some things happen, but we need to always remember Romans 8:28-29; “all things work together for good.” How is it going to work out for good? Because the things we go through help to make us more like Jesus all the time.
God has predestinated that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. There are only two kinds of events we face in this life- (1) caused by God, or (2) allowed by God. God doesn’t cause bad things to happen. In His wisdom He allows us to face tough situations. We need to always remember that God is not nearly as concerned with what we are going through as He is with our reaction to what we’re going through. I made a plaque for my daughter that says: “If you help God’s creatures your heart will be broken. Help God’s creatures anyway.” She’s helped baby robins, homeless cats and dogs, turtles in the road, etc. etc. Those things haven’t always turned out good, but we’ve learned a lot of good things because of going through it. Brandi decided to thank God for all the animals she still has instead of allowing herself to be crushed by the one she lost.
My twin sister committed suicide 18 years ago. Out of all the things our family has faced over the years that was by far the toughest. God gave us all what we needed to make it through that when we decided to thank God for the 40 years we had had her instead of being bitter over the years we would not have her. We must take charge of our thinking, and make ourselves be thankful for what we do have rather than being bitter over what we think we should have. We must “take captive every thought” and take responsibility for how we allow ourselves to react to what we go through in life.
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