Choosing to be victorious in an age of victims

by Dale Coad December 2016

You have a choice to make....everyday!    Will you be a victim or victorious?    Our world is filled with people crippled with a victim mentality.   If anyone had a justifiable reason to feel like a victim, it was Sergeant Bryan Anderson.   Near the end of his second tour in Iraq his Humvee ran over an IED and left Bryan unconscious without his two legs and his left hand.  Seven days later, he woke up in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.    He was stunned to see his mother at his bedside, thinking he was still in Iraq.

As the shocking reality of his lost hit him he thought, "I'm half a person."   But then his mother spoke some powerful words that helped determine the course of his life, "You know you have basically two options here, right?'   He nodded and said, "Yup.   Move on--or roll over and die."   She probed, "And you're going to....?"   Resolutely he said, "Move on!"   After a challenging regiment of rehabilitation, Bryan learned to live independently and is optimistic about life.   (Taken from Guideposts July 2016, "A Will to Live" pg. 31).    Everyday he is making the right choice.

As you face the ever-growing challenge of living out your Call with integrity and passion, what do you choose: to be a victim or to be victorious?   Your choice impacts the effectiveness of your life and ministry.   There is a new buzzword that is akin to our concept of "the Call of God" on our lives, namely "Grit."

Grit defined by Angela Lee Duckworth is "passion with perseverance to obtain a long-term goal."

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?language=en#t-37110. 

As men and women of God, we're not promised a life without conflicts.   We are however promised a life empowered by God to fulfill His Call on our lives without shame or remorse, a victorious life even in conflict.

Romans 8:36-26 (TLB) helps prepare us for the conflict, "...the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day...but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us."   As believers, what is the key to our victory? "If God is on our side, who can ever be against us?" Romans 8:31 (TLB)

So let's choose to live our lives in victory, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising that shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."  Hebrews 12:2 (KJV)