Introduction

Eternal Payoffs

Lean On Someone Who Cares

• Friends and family for emotional support

  "Two are better than one,
  because they have a good return for their work:
  If one falls down,
  his friend can help him up.
  But pity the man who falls
  and has no one to help him up!
  Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
  But how can one keep warm alone?
  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.
  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecc. 4:9-12)
  
  Some think, "Just me and God is enough." But often, God wants to meet your needs through other people.
  
  

  Research from Stanford University found that cancer patients who attended a weekly support group lived an average of twice as long as nonattenders. (Fifty Essential Things To Do When The Doctor Says It's Cancer, by Greg Anderson, p. 82.)

  
  
  Struggling with drug dependency or an alcoholic parent? Find some people you can confide in and lean on. We really need each other.
  
  

• Wise counsel for difficult solutions

  "let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance." (Prov. 1:5)

  When Jan Dravecky struggled with depression, she began reading some Christian books on depression. A Christian acquaintance took the book and threw it on the ground, declaring, "All you need is the Word of God." But Jan knew that God's Word directs us to sometimes go to others, like our parents or other wise counselors. In the end, God used these books and wise counselors to pull Jan out of her depression.

  
  
  

Realize That Nothing Can Foul Up God's Plan For the Faithful Christian.

We've mentioned Dave Dravecky several times, the fantastic pitcher with the San Francisco Giants, who lost his ability to pitch when surgery removed, not only a tumor, but half of the surrounding muscle from his pitching arm. But through his faith and iron will, he not only regained the use of his arm, but returned to the major leagues! But the victory was short lived. In his second game back, his bone broke in a pitch, causing excruciating pain to shoot through his arm.

Now tell me, what would go through your mind at this time? (Get some ideas.) Here's how Dave describes it: "As odd as it sounds, I wasn't discouraged as I lay there, because with the excruciating pain came a strange sense of exhilaration, a sense that God wasn't finished with the story He was trying to tell with my life. It was weird. There I was gritting my teeth, biting back, and I was thinking, Okay, God, what's the next chapter gonna be? Then suddenly I became overwhelmed at what God was doing with my life, and I realized what He was doing was much bigger than baseball." (Dravecky, p. 11)

Remember Those Who Have Suffered More Than You

I heard of a person who complained that he had no shoes, until he met a person with no feet.

Joni Eareckson grew up hiking, playing tennis, and thinking that handicaps happen to other people. But all that changed one hot July afternoon in 1967 when she dove off a raft that was anchored offshore in the Chesapeake Bay. Her head hit something hard, snapping it back and sending something like an electric shock through the back of her neck. At 17 years of age, she found herself a quadriplegic, unable to feel anything from her neck down. As the months dragged on, depression set in, and anger.

A therapist wanted her to learn how to write with a pencil clenched between her teeth. She stubbornly refused. But then something changed her. Joni says, "But that was before I met Tom, a young ventilator-dependent quadriplegic who was much more paralyzed than me. His attitude was buoyant and enthusiastic as he willingly permitted the therapist to put the pen in his mouth. I was ashamed of my grumbling and complaining." God used her friends' prayers and Tom's example to show her that good could come out of her situation. In fact, she eventually learned to draw so well that she now sells her artwork. But seeing someone worse than her was a turning point for her attitude. God later opened up many doors for her to speak and write about her story, challenging people to trust God with whatever trials they face. (Condensed from "Joni's Story," booket; A Step Further, Joni Eareckson and Steve Estes, Zondervan, 1978)

To see yourself in relation to how most of the world lives, let's shrink the world down to a village of 100 people and keep all the present proportions the same. Here's how your neighbors would be living:

• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 70 couldn't read
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition
• only one would have a college education
• no one would have a computer

From this perspective, your bad grade in chemistry no longer looks like grounds for suicide. While some are facing agonizing trials like parents divorcing or the death of a friend, others of us whine about relatively trivial things and need to get get our eyes off of ourselves and become more concerned with the needs of others.

Get Your Eyes Off Of Yourself

Patti (not her real name) had been excitedly planning for the birth of her child for months. But tragedy struck when the child was born dead. To make matters worse, the doctor never allowed her to hold or even see the child. Later, she became bitter, not only at losing the child, but at being denied the gratification of her motherly instinct to hold the baby. But after a time, she heard of another mother who had lost a child. Patti's wise mother challenged her to look outside of herself and use her experience to go help this other grieving mother. Taking this advice began her own healing process.

Realize Your Strategic Importance In God's Plan For The World.

Endure Till the End

William Carey faced all kinds of trials as he left his beloved homeland and traveled to India to spread the gospel. His wife went insane and finally died. He took a second wife and she died. Three of his sons died. A flood destroyed the Indigo business that he used to support himself, and four of the seven missionaries who came to serve with him died. A fire destroyed his print shop, including some precious translations that were never replaced. Most people would have probably given up and lived the rest of their days in bitterness about the past. But not Carey. Rather than despair, he never quit, accomplishing incredible advances for God's kingdom. In his latter years someone described him as "cheerful, and happy as the day is long." And rather than retiring and returning to his homeland, he died in India at age 73, while reading the proofs of his recently completed final revision of the Bengali New Testament. Today he is hailed as the father of modern missions. My point? No matter how much crud the world threw at him, he never gave up.

Conclusion