The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 13

“Confronting the Fear of Failure” is the title of Chapter 13 in The Upside of Adversity. Fear is such a crippling thing, and at various times in my life, it has been mentally and emotionally paralyzing. This was a good chapter for me, and here are some bits and pieces for you that were meaningful to me.

“Failure hurts. It undermines your self-esteem as few other experiences can. But failure isn’t the final word on your life. It’s just one of the raw ingredients God uses to manufacture success. Everybody fails. It’s part of the process where God uses broken things and broken people to accomplish His plans.” 

If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures.

“Failure is usually a far better teacher than success—if we are willing to learn the lessons. God sees it as preparation for success. We need to start looking at failure from God’s perspective. he is daily giving us a fresh revelation of His purpose for our lives. Are we listening? He wants us to live with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm and a willingness to dare great things in His name. He wants to transform the desert wastelands of our past into a lush green Eden flowing with streams of live-giving water.”

“Fear is the enemy of faith. Fear is bondage. Satan wants us to live in bondage to the past, bugt God wants us to live in the freedom of His love and power. This is a spiritual battle, and it can only be won with spiritual weapons. We must replace our fear with the peace that passes understanding. Fear is a natural response to obstacles, adversity and failure, but peace is the supernatural response that God gives us by His grace.”

“No matter how we have failed in the past, the God of peace is leading us to success. The peace of God is our ultimate weapon against fear.”

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 12

Chapter 12 of The Upside of Adversity is called “Our Response to Adversity” and here are some things that I got out of the chapter. To me, this is a key chapter of the entire book, and I got a lot of good info from it that I hope to be able to apply for the rest of my life.

“God can take our adversity—a heart attack, cancer, an automobile accident, violent crime, bankruptcy, the loss of a loved one—and transform that pain into blessing for the people around us. We come out of those experiences stronger and better able to comfort and encourage others. Although adversity is never a blessing, God in His grace can bring blessing out of adversity.”

“God doesn’t test us in order to find out something He doesn’t already know. He tests us so that we can learn about ourselves and His love, power and faithfulness. When God tests us, he reveals the true state of our hearts. Are we obedient to His will, or are we self-willed?”

The Three Responses to Adversity

1. Anger—When adversity comes our way, we become bitter and resentful and blame God and others for our problems. 

2. Suck It Up—Those who adopt a tough exterior and simply try to “suck it up” will never received what God has planned for them, nor will they learn the lessons God has planned for them. God’s desire for us, in times of adversity, is that we come to know Him in a more intimate way. When we adopt a stoic attitude in doing this, we are merely isolating ourselves with a shell of false bravado. We don’t meditate on God’s love, we don’t pray, we don’t believe God really has anything planned for us. We simply suck it up and tell ourselves that this will soon be over.

3. Acceptance with Joy—This is the response that God seeks from us. Then, when adversity comes, we rest in His love and trust that He knows best. If there is pain in our lives, we know it’s because God deems it necessary for our growth or wishes to use our pain to minister to others. This brings about Christian maturity. Anger is a natural response to adversity. A stoic suck-it-up response is natural too, but acceptance with joy is not natural. It’s supernatural. It‘d not a response that we can summon up from somewhere in our personality. It’s something we can only receive as a gift from the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

“God wants us to keep our eyes fixed on Him, not on our circumstances. Nothing is impossible as long as we keep our eyes on Him. God still sends us into the storms of life, because He knows what we need to go through in order for us to grow in our faith. He loves us too much to allow us to be satisfied with a superficial, unrealistic faith. He wants us to have a robust, invincible, obedient faith that will take us to the very limits of our possibilities.”

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 11

Strongholds are just not something I have spent a great deal of time thinking about in life, but chapter 11 of The Upside of Adversity deals with that very thing, and it is called “Adversity Resulting from Strongholds.” The author, Os Hillman, takes the chapter and discusses strongholds in various parts of life—spiritual, Biblical, generational, as well as those dealing with control. Here are some things that stuck out to me from this chapter.

“In the spiritual realm, strongholds are hidden and fortified places in the soul where demonic and destructive ideas can take hold of a person without that person being aware of it. They control our actions and destroy our relationships by ruling and directing the way we think. There is a common pattern to the development of spiritual strongholds. That sequence looks like this:

1. Destructive thoughts are introduced to the mind of a person, which become negative beliefs.

2. The person contemplates these thoughts and beliefs, which in turn produce negative emotions.

3. Destructive emotions prompt the person to take destructive actions (including speaking harmful words to others).

4. This cycle repeats until destructive actions form destructive habits.

5. As the habit becomes harder and harder to break, a stronghold is built.

Spiritual strongholds are hidden and difficult to detect with you conscious mind. Your strongholds actually form part of your mental filter of reality, and involve unexamined assumptions—beliefs that you assume to be true, though they may be utterly false. Strongholds form when we try to meet our needs in ways that are contrary to God’s will. They are part of Satan’s strategy for deceiving us into conforming to the pattern of this fallen world. God wants to break us of our conformity to this world by totally transforming and renewing our minds and hearts.”

Generational Influence

“One reason why so many Christians live defeated lives is because they have not dealt with the generational strongholds in their lives. These can take many forms: anger, rage, violence, abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual immorality, witchcraft, fear, insecurity, and so forth. The only way to pull down a stronghold like this is with a greater spiritual force—the power of God Himself.”

The Stronghold of Control

The first step in confronting this stronghold is to recognize the problem. This is a common stronghold. Where does this stronghold come from? Controlling personalities have some common traits that contribute to this stronghold in their lives:

1. Controllers are tremendously insecure, though they cover it up with a facade of egotism.

2. Controllers were usually wounded at some time in their early years. They feel the need to control to avoid getting hurt again.

3. Controllers are distrustful and wary, which damages relationships.

4. Controllers are prone to anger. They become frustrated when they feel they’re losing control of a situation.

5. Controllers are afraid. The act big on the outside, but feel small on the inside.

6. Controllers respond inappropriately to situations. They overreact and become angry out of proportion to the provocation. They fly into a rage or become hysterical over minor problems.

7. Controllers were trained to control. They learned it at home. It’s the only thing they know.

“As you go forth and live your life, be continually transformed by the renewing of your mind, and receive God’s power to pull down strongholds in your life. This is your best insurance against spiritual influences that do not come from God. As your relationship deepens with Him day by day, you’ll grow stronger in your ability to resist the sabotage of Satan, and he will no longer be able to establish a stronghold in your life.”

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 10

Chapter 10 of The Upside of Adversity is called “Suffering, Sickness and Sin.” Now unfortunately this chapter has all kinds of content that I can personally relate to, after dealing with, suffering through and enduring a chronic illness with no cure for 21 years now. With that said, here are some things I got out of the chapter. 

“Our loving God must sometimes hurt us in order to heal us. No matter what happens in our lives, we k now that nothing happens without God’s foreknowledge and permission. He always knows what we are going through—and why.” 

“We often seek God to get out of our pain, but the truth is that we become lovers of God because of His response to our pain. Obedience will not last when the motivation is the removal of our pain. Obedience only lasts when the motivation is loving devotion. Jesus learned obedience through His sufferings—and so do we. God allows adversity in our lives to teach us what it means to obey God’s will. God has designed our trials to separate us from our attachment to sin and our former life. He uses our suffering to take us deeper into a relationship of trust and dependence on Him.”

Here are a few lists in the chapter on the themes presented.

Six Reasons for Adversity

1. Our Sonship—Our Heavenly Father sometimes uses adversity to produce growth and maturity in His children.

2. Our Identification with Others—God sometimes uses adversity in our lives to enable us to better understand and minister to other suffering people.

3. Our Testing—God takes us through tests in order to determine if we are ready for a leadership role in His Kingdom.

4. Our Calling and Preparation—Adversity teaches us how to endure pressure, problems, and stress.

5. Our Ability to Trust God’s Faithfulness—Adversity is a school of faith where we learn to trust God and depend on Him completely to provide for our needs.

6. Our Sin—Sometimes we experience adversity because God is dealing with sin in either our individual lives or in our corporate lives.

Sickness and Sin

1. Sickness Can Glorify God—God sometimes allows sickness to bring glory to Himself and to teach us more about His power and love.

2. Sickness Can Be a Disciplinary Judgment—God sometimes allows sickness in our lives as a disciplinary judgment against sin.

3. Sickness Can Be an Affliction from Satan—Satan is active in the world, and he seeks to hinder us and torment us any way he can. If you are ever afflicted by Satan know that God will use that to bring about His plan in your life, not Satan’s plan.

4. Sickness Can Be a Natural Part of Living in a Fallen World—As the time for our departure from this earth grows closer, God may allow illness to bring our lives to a close. The illnesses we suffer through serve to loosen the attachments we have for this earthly life.

God still heals our diseases! We should always examine ourselves during times of illness to make sure that our lives are in tune with God. Thank God, He has promised to weave all of our sufferings into a beautiful tapestry of ministry and praise. Our God is an awesome God!

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 9

Chapter 9 of The Upside of Adversity kicks off the third part of the book, and this section is called “Why We Suffer,” with the chapter title being “Why Do Good People Suffer?” which is something most people have wondered or asked at some point in their lives during or after some sort of horrible accident or tragedy.

This chapter was sort of a build up to the question that the chapter is titled, so I will start with the answer to that question from the author, then insert other things I got out of it.

“Part of the problem with asking the question, “Why do good people suffer?” is that it assumes the world is divided into good people and bad people. The fact is that no one is truly good. Yes, there are people who love God and put their trust in Him, and they receive His forgiveness as a gift of grace—but there are no good people. All have sinned, and no one is entitled to anything good from God. The suffering we endure is the result of living in a fallen world. The blessings we receive are the undeserved gifts of God’s grace.”

“We do not know all the reasons why God permits evil. We need to remember, however, that he is not the cause of evil in this world and we should therefore not blame Him for it. Remember that God did not create evil, as some believe. God created the world perfect. Man chose to defy God and go his own way, and it is man’s fault that evil entered the world. Christ is coming back and when He does, evil will be ended forever and righteousness and justice will prevail.”

“Sometimes, God must take us through the darkness to shape our character so that we can be conformed to the image of His son, Jesus. At other times, God takes us through darkness so that we can learn what it means to identify with the sufferings of Christ. And sometimes God takes us through darkness to prepare us for the amazing ministry He has planned for us. If we never experience mistreatment, opposition or suffering of our own, we might never understand the hurts of others.”

“All the events in our lives are filtered through His will for our lives. Because Christ is fully man and fully God, we know that God understands our fears, sorrows and suffering. He identifies with us. Most importantly, the Father has given us the gift of His Son so that we don’t have to die and suffer forever in eternity. Because Jesus suffered and died for us, our suffering can be made like His—purposeful and meaningful.

“In times of suffering, only one thing matters: clinging by faith to the God who loves us. One day in eternity, Jesus will wipe away all our tears and answer all our questions. Until then, God’s people keep moving forward, because we know that all things ultimately work out for good for those who are called according to His purposes.”

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 8

The final chapter in a four chapter section about various tests in The Upside of Adversity is called Test No. 4: The Success Test. There is a portion of this chapter called “Keys to Passing the Success Test,” so I thought I would share that list and a few things from each that stood out to me.

1. View Success as a Gift from God

First, learn to see all of your successes as a gift from God, not as your own achievement. The Lord is the source of all success, all elevation, all blessing. If you have a good mind and a healthy body, if you live in a land of opportunity, if you have a good education, if you’ve been given a few breaks, then you have much to be grateful for—and no cause for arrogance. You didn’t achieve success; you received it as a gift.

2. Learn How to Handle Praise

If someone gushes over your accomplishments, accept it, but don’t let it go to your head. Avoid the extremes of false modesty, and egotism. If someone praises you, just say “thank you” and move on. When you try to win praise, you are stealing from God. All praise belongs to Him.

3. Live a Humble Life

You need to voluntarily humble yourself before God—or God will have to humble you Himself. You must view yourself realistically. You should not have an inflated opinion of yourself, nor a deflated self-image. 

4. Be Held Accountable for Humility

Ask people to hold you accountable for a humble attitude. True humility accepts constructive criticism with an open mind.

5. Remember that God Saved You and has Plans for You

The very fact that Jesus Christ died to save us is humbling. God didn’t have to send His son to die in our place. In truth, we deserve nothing but everlasting punishment. Every good thing that happens in our lives is a blessing of God’s grace far beyond our deserving. Not only has God saved us from sin, but He also has actually chosen to accomplish His eternal plan through us, flawed and fallible as we are.

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 7

The third of four tests in section two (chapter 7) of The Upside of Adversity is called “Test No. 3: The Perseverance Test. Here are some excerpts from this chapter that stuck out to me. 

“Perseverance is the key to every great accomplishment because nothing of lasting value has ever been achieved without adversity. We need to remember that perseverance is not a matter of forcing doors to open; it’s standing in front of the doors as long as it takes before God chooses to open them.”

When God leads us through adversity, we need to endure it with patience and obedience. We should never take a shortcut through the valley of adversity, because it always ends up being the long way around. God always rewards patience; He always blesses obedience.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12).

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 6

The 2nd of a four chapter section on tests in The Upside of Adversity is chapter 6, titled Test No. 2: The Integrity Test, which deals with temptation. Here are some things that I highlighted in this chapter.

“This is a test that is especially difficult in our sex-and greed-saturated society, but one that we must all pass successfully in order to be used greatly by God. We live in a fallen world, and sometimes the righteous pay a high price for their integrity—but that’s what the Integrity Test is all about. Before God elevates us to a positionof leadership, He wants us to prove that we are willing to pay the price for doing His will.”

“This is a battle—and our enemy doesn’t play fair. In fact, we face three enemies—two enemies without and an enemy within: the world, the flesh and the devil. The world and the devil are the enemies without and the flesh is the enemy within.” 

“The World is the culture around us—the godless business system, the immoral arts and entertainment system, our worldly peers, and so forth. The devil is a spiritual adversary who seeks to destroy us. He is at war with God, and our soul is the battlefield. The flesh is that complex array of natural drives and appetites that have become distorted because of our fallenness as children of Adam and Eve.” 

Satan continually whispers to us, “Yield. Give in. You deserve it. It’s only natural to want it.” Yet we must be watchful especially in the beginning of the temptation; for the enemy is then more easily overcome, if he is not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but is resisted without the gate at his first knock.

“It’s not a sin to be tempted. It’s only a sin to give in to temptation. We can pass the Integrity Test. We just need a strategy for defeating temptation when it comes our way.” 

Here is a seven step strategy from this chapter on how to pass the Integrity Test. 

Step 1: Start with a commitment

Step 2: Share your commitment with another person

Step 3: Be aware of the stress that triggers temptation

Step 4: Flee temptation; never compromise or flirt with sin

Step 5: Remember the terrible cost of sin

Step 6: Meditate on God’s Word

Step 7: Put on the armor of God

May God give us the grace and strength to withstand the Integrity Test so that He can use us in mighty ways.

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of The Upside of Adversity begins a four chapter section on various tests that the author says we must pass along the way of experiencing adversity, and tests that he personally encountered and endured in his 7 year season of difficulty. The chapter title is Test No. 1: The Judas Test, which is about being rejected and betrayed. Here are some things that stuck out to me in this chapter.

“Its hard to to become bitter when a friend or family member wounds us. It takes a lot of Christlike grace to forgive a traitor. Yet God is watching to see how we respond to the Judas Test. If we pass the test, He can then take us to the next level, the next test. If we fail, we’ll probably have to repeat the test until we learn to forgive.”

The Judas Test is God’s graduate-level course in faith, designed to reveal the truth about ourselves: Are we willing to trust Him enough to forgive the Judases in our lives? 

“We cannot love and forgive our enemies in our own strength. This level of love requires graduate-level grace. God seeks to move us from one level to the next as He trains us and prepares us for greater use in His kingdom. He will not elevate us if there is any root of bitterness in our lives.”

“When we give up our rights and our resentment and allow God to work as He sees fit, our weakness becomes our strength.”

The Judas Test is not about getting the results we want. It’s about proving that we trust God enough to forgive our Judases.

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 4

The Desert Place is the title of chapter 4 in The Upside of Adversity, and here are some pieces of the chapter that stuck out to me.

God is with you, even if you can’t see Him, hear Him or sense His presence. He is leading you through the Wasteland. In His good time, He will bring you to a place of refreshment and restoration.

God wants to turn your desert places into lush green valleys of blessing. He wants to provide cool water for your thirst and shade against the desert sun.

For some reason, God does not seem to speak to us until we have been in the desert for an extended period of time. Perhaps it’s because it takes us a long time to reach a point where we’re ready to listen. He wants us to operate out of trust, not fear. When we operate out of fear, the Lord will lovingly discipline us and teach us to trust Him. Jesus is real, and He’s involved in our lives! He cares even about the simple, basic things in life. 

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of The Upside of Adversity is called The Black Hole. Not a title that usually gets one excited. It is basically about life when you have hit rock bottom, and though I have not experienced a black hole to the level that the author has, I found plenty of provoking and insightful things in the chapter that he said. Some of what I found interesting are the following excerpts.

“The black hole usually occurs at the front end of a crisis when the fear is greatest—and when God seems strangely silent. But even when it seems that God is distant and silent, when you feel you are in a black hole of isolation and loneliness, your “heat shield” is still there, firm and reliable. God, your heat shield, still protects you from the fiery forces that surround you. In your black hole experience, God is teaching you to go deeper into your relationship with him.”

“Even as you question God, hold onto Him. Keep trusting Him. Wait, believe, love and know that He is at work in your life, even in the silence of your black hole. This is a season of preparation. God places us in black holes to teach us to trust Him with all our hearts—and that means He wants us to learn to trust His timing. God wants us to wait for His deliverance. Painful though it is, the black hole is God’s gift to us. It is His means of bringing us to spiritual maturity so that we will be able to discern the difference between our own self-deliverance and God’s authentic deliverance in our lives.”

“One way to look at a black hole is to see it as a defining moment. A defining moment is a time in our life when everything changes and we know that there’s no turning back. A defining moment crystallizes us and shapes us into the kind of people we will be. It’s an event in our lives that gives form and meaning to our existence.”

The following is a poem from this chapter that was written by an anonymous confederate soldier. The line of this poem express the soul of a man who has learned the lessons of a black hole experience.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve;

I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked God for health, that I might to greater things;

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy;

I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. 

I am, among men, most richly blessed.

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is titled “God’s Way of Calling a Leader.” Here are some random selections from this chapter that I found meaningful.

God is always in control, achieving His objectives through our lives. He has a plan for getting us to the destination He has appointed for us. We don’t have to manipulate events, for God Himself is in control of all divine appointments. 

When God begins to refine us and prepare us for leadership, one of the first things He has to do is burn the self-centered pride out of us. he has to turn us upside-down and shake us, humble us and level us. He doesn’t need our skill, our talent, or our ability. He wants our hearts yielded to Him.

God is more concerned with future potential than present circumstances.

God often takes us through adversity to get our eyes off of our own limitations so that we can see HIs limitless power.

We can’t demonstrate God’s good and perfect will for our life by staying in the same old rut. We must be transformed and renewed. That’s why we must often pass through adversity on our way to becoming what God wants us to be. Adversity changes us. Adversity is the crucible that melts down the old us. Adversity is the hammer that shapes the new us. 

The Upside of Adversity, Chapter 1

Hello friends!

Two weeks ago I started a new men’s book study based on an all-time favorite book of mine I read last fall, The Upside of Adversity. This is an incredible book, and I thought that each week, I would post some statements from the book that are meaningful to me, with the hope that if you are experiencing some adversity in your life, that they would be meaningful to you. So, here are some things from chapter one “You Have a Joseph Calling,” that really impacted me.

“God calls some leaders to experience extraordinary levels of adversity in order to accomplish extraordinary things through them. Why? Because He knows that adversity builds character and produces wisdom in the life of a leader. God will use this adversity for good in your life and in the lives of others.”

“Job underwent a Joseph Calling experience. Through his trial of adversity, he grew in strength, wisdom and faith. His entire perspective on God was transformed by his suffering.

We must get beyond the immature notion that God is only interested in making us healthy, wealthy and happy. God wants so much more for us than that. He wants us to be wise, mature, obedient, bold and committed. He wants us to be like Christ. And the road to becoming like Christ often leads through the wilderness of adversity.”

Check back each week when I post a few gems from each chapter. If you would like more info on the book feel free to check out the link above. It is a great read.