Posted by Little Things of Life on December 16, 2009
How should we respond to difficulties during the hard times in our lives?
I have pasted in below some helpful thoughts from Dr. Ray Pritchard, including a principle that Jim Warren shared with him many years ago:
“Be a student, not a victim.”
Many people go through life as professional victims, always talking about how unfair life is. That’s because being a victim seems so right, so just, and so easy to justify. But perpetual victimhood dooms you to a life of self-centered misery because you learn nothing from your trials.
What a difference it makes to be a student and not a victim.
A victim says, “Why did this happen to me?”
A student says, “What can I learn from this?”
A victim blames other people for his problems.
A student asks, “How much of this did I bring on myself?”
A victim looks at everyone else and cries out, “Life isn’t fair.”
A student looks at life and says, “What happened to me could have happened to anyone.”
A victim believes his hard times have come because God is trying to punish him.
A student understands that God allows hard times in order to help him grow.
A victim would rather complain than find a solution.
A student has no time to complain because he is busy making the best of his situation.
A victim believes that the deck of life is forever stacked against him.
A student believes that God is able to reshuffle the cards anytime he wants to.
A victim feels so sorry for himself that he has no time for others.
A student focuses on helping others so that he has no time to feel sorry for himself.
A victim begs God to remove the problems of life so that he might be happy.
A student has learned through the problems of life that God alone is the source of all true happiness.
Many things happen to us that we cannot control. In that sense, we are all victims of unexpected circumstances. Unfortunately, some people never rise above the victim mode. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We choose the way we respond to the things that happen to us.
By the grace of God, we can decide to become students, not victims, as we face the trials of life.
http://www.keepbelieving.com/blog/2009-12-4-be-a-student-not-a-victim/
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Posted in Help for Hard Times, RECENT POSTS, THINK A LITTLE | 1 Comment »
