How to handle adversity in the military

As a Chaplain in our nation’s military, your life can become very challenging at times.  When it does do you find yourself asking, “why is this happening to me?”

 

Having spent years in the military and someone who has wrestled with this topic for years, I have learned three key truths about how to answer the “Why” question above.

 

First, we live in a fallen world with sinful people who are often only focused on pleasing themselves and not anybody else.

 

Second, God often has a “greater” purpose for allowing our adversity.  It could be that He desires to get our attention because we have ignored His other signals. It could be that He wants to work on our character and the adversity is the best way to address it (as painful as that may be).  When the Israelites lived in the desert for forty years, it must have seemed a great adversity to have no food left at the end of each day. But God knew that if He provided more than one day’s supply at a time, the people would stop looking to Him. This “adversity” kept their attention on looking to their Provider for help.

 

Third, adversity can also be a tool to remind us of God’s great love for us. We can become so used to His love that we don’t appreciate it until we hit a bump. What’s more, adversity can help us come to know the Lord in a deeper way. To experience Him as our comforter requires that there be a need for comfort. Or perhaps He wants to lead us into self-examination. We tend to ignore our wanderings from God’s ways. When halted by an obstacle, we have time to discover the wrong turns we’ve made.

 

Remember that whatever the reason for your adversity, God has a purpose for it, loves you and has allowed it to be part of your life for a good reason (Rom. 8:28).  I hope you can take comfort from these words from James 1:24, which says

to “consider it all joy” when we encounter trials, because such testing of our faith produces endurance and perfects us.

 

From everyone here at Centurion’s Watch, thank you for your ministry to our Indiana soldiers.

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