SEEING THROUGH GOD’S EYES
7:00:00 AM
How do you deal with
unexpected situation? To something that went out of your way? It could be as
simple as delayed bus or undelivered package or something as big as losing a
job or losing someone?
I admire those people who stay cool in that kind of
situation. For someone like me who loves to script life to some degree (just a
little bit!), I freak out when things didn’t go as expected.
But there’s one story
that really changed me. It’s the story of The Empty Tomb in John 20: 11-18. Three days after Jesus’ death,
Mary went to the tomb where Jesus was laid and saw that it is empty. She stood
outside the tomb and went crying not knowing where Jesus’ body is. Then a man
came to her and asked her “Mary, why are you crying?” To her surprise, it was
Jesus!
Imagine the situation, Mary was crying her heart out and
Jesus was behind her, probably laughing a little bit (I’m just guessing). I
assume Mary had a good laugh too, right after, for one because of joy that
Jesus is alive and for how crappy she looked for crying for nothing.
This story taught me that we can only see a little bit of a picture but God sees the whole
picture and every details of it. We may see things in a wrong perspective,
but God always sees things in the right perspective. To Mary the empty tomb means disappointment, but to Jesus’ eyes, it is
a place of victory.
With this new realization, I came up with two steps to help
me deal with unexpected situations.
BELIEVE THAT GOOD
THINGS CAN HAPPEN
When confronted with unexpected situations, I always think
that something bad will happen. Learning from Mary unfolds a new point of view
for me. Instead of thinking of the worst
case scenario, I started to see things as a redirection, a lesson learned, or a
new opportunity. It takes the same energy to think positive and negative,
so choose to think positive. Things
happen for a reason and believe that the reason is for your good.
One of the most unexpected things that happened to me was
when I lost my dad. I used to think that if I ever lose someone I love, I won’t
be able to live my life again. Losing my dad is the most painful experience I’ve
been through so far. My life was never the same again since he was gone. I let myself go through pain, but I don’t
let pain get through me. To cope up, I try to think of all the good things
about his death; at least he doesn’t suffer that long, we don’t see him hurting
for a long time; he’s now resting and enjoying heaven.
No matter how unexpected a situation is, when we believe that good things can happen,
we are directing ourselves to do the next step…
RESPOND POSITIVELY
It’s one thing to believe, but it’s another thing to take action.
After all, it’s not a belief if there’s
no proof of doing it.
I wonder what had happened if Mary overwhelmed herself with emotion. Will
she bother to talk with the man who
asked her why is she crying? What if she ignored the man, cry some more and
went home (crying)? She will never get her question answered and she will lose
the chance to be a vessel of the good news.
We cannot control circumstances, but at least we can control
our responses. As Mr. Charles R Swindoll says, life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it.
That means you can flip a bad situation into something good if you take an
action to respond positively.
Let say you are going through a break up. You can choose to mourn for a couple of weeks
or for a couple of years. It all depends on you whether you will take an action
to get out of it or keep a permanent residency in mourning city. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is
optional. Know that pain is just a chemical cocktail inside your body that
subsides after a while. It is your response that prolongs the agony.
So, how to respond positively? Think of a doable ways to
solve your situation. Delayed bus? Read a book (or sure, go to Facebook, but
please don’t rant). Undelivered package? Call the courier. Losing a job? Find a
new job or build a business. Losing
someone? Do an Emotional Declutter
and so on. The point is to take action
because you don’t want to get stuck in yourself re-watching the unexpected situation
in your head.
So there you have it. When things went out of your way,
remind yourself of the story of The Empty Tomb. This will make you accept the situation you’re at and take courage to
do something about it rather than just plainly freak out. Who knows, it could be a blessing in disguise.
Do you have a personal “Empty Tomb” story? I’d love to hear
about it. Feel free to share them below and let’s get the story rolling. See
you in my next post!
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