“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
― Martha Washington
“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.”
― G.K. Chesterton
“Stop blaming outside circumstances for your inside chaos.”
― Steve Maraboli
We have heard the expression, “under the circumstances…” or “rise above your circumstances”. Many people today seem to be “victims of their circumstances”. The Christian is the victor and not the victim. Romans 8:28 states, “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. ” Verse 37 says, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” I Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I John 4:4, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Victim or Victor? “According to your faith, be it unto you.” “And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Too many Christians (like the Jews of old) are delivered from Egypt, but they get lost in the wilderness of unbelief! Sometimes we are not the victim of our circumstances, but the victim of our own bitterness, jealousy or our own ambitions.
Hannah Whithall Smith wrote, “He does not need to transplant us into a different field, but right where we are, with just the circumstances that surround us, he makes his sun to shine and his dew to fall upon us and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle him. No dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness in your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that he will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into his hands and let him have his own way with you.”
For those of you that know these Bible stories, think about who the real victims or victors were. Mordecai or Haman? Daniel or his accusers? Paul and Silas or their Roman captors? Joseph or his brothers? David or Saul/Absalom? Jesus or those who crucified Him? The song says, “He arose the victor from the dark domain and lives forever with His saints to reign!” Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
In the third century, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, wrote to his friend Donatus: “It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians… and I am one of them.”