Welcome to the Victory Blog

In this series, we’re trying to find and identify anything that’s keeping us from going forward in this new year. We want to address these things. This week, I’m asking, “How do we move forward in the midst of crisis?” I mean, terrible things happen in life. Anybody who’s seen the news about the devastation in Haiti can have no question about this. And, the truth is that no matter who we are, we all experience crisis at one point or another in our lives. It can be relational, physical, financial or otherwise. It can be large or small. But the question is: how do we get ourselves in a position such that no matter what comes our way, we are able to keep moving forward?

The answer, of course, lies in Jesus. Only through him can we find the strength and peace that we need. Then, with this understanding in place, we start moving forward by doing the following:

1. Evaluate – to Appraise or assess something. To think it over, to ponder it, to consider the situation. Ask why these things are happening, even before you start moving forward. There may be a real reason for the crisis. How did I get here? If you don’t evaluate, you’re going to go out and do the same thing all over again.
   • Evaluate the past in what you want to change.
   • Evaluate the present in what you can do.
   • Evaluate the future in what is God calling you to.
2. Plan – everyone needs to plan. A person without a plan is at the mercy of someone who does. If you don’t have a plan for your life, someone else does, and it’s probably not a good one. It’s a whole lot better to go into a crisis with a plan than to wait until you’re in the midst of crisis to try to come up with a plan.
3. Act – too often, when we get in crisis, rather than continuing to move forward, we get paralyzed by things like fear, anger, unforgiveness, discouragement or disillusionment. But we can’t let these things stop us. We’ve got to keep acting on God’s Word…keep moving forward.
4. Focus – how do we stay focused in the midst of a crisis? It’s not very easy, but that’s exactly what we need to do. We mustn’t look left, right or back, but look forward. We have to keep our gaze on what God’s Word says; above and beyond what our circumstances say. Focus on where God is taking us, not where we’ve been. Focus on the answer, not the problem.
5. Trust – every single outstanding character of the Bible is known for their trust in the Lord. We can find trust over and over and over again throughout the Bible. Unfortunately, whenever we face a crisis, we have a tendency to forget how essential trust is. We will be severely tempted to stop trusting God by the circumstances in our crises. But remember this: we go through tests to learn about trust. Every test has a trust issue involved.

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become. ~ B.F. Westcott

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