Despite the Circumstances
Pastor Allwin Johnson
Acts 7:54-56
When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
In a day of life we meet a variety of people, we face a variety of problems and challenges, we do different sorts of work, we go through a blend of circumstances and we’ll be in fluctuating moods. Every day is an amalgam of positives and negatives.
Yes, above said is true and everybody knows this. There is no surprise in it but the problem lies here is, a single man goes through all these circumstances. Circumstances are manifold but the men who face all these have only one brain and one heart. What a single brain and heart will do when it gets this great extent of pressure from the outside world?
Look at your daily life; you come across so many people of good and bad attitudes, praises, criticisms, anger, hatred, gossips, evil practices, sinful environment, and immoral conversations so on… Added to this, in our "capitalized" society, private sector enterprises give a lot of work pressure to its employees. If you don’t finish your targets in time, you should be ready to hear everything from your superior. One day you perform and you get applause on the floor. The next day you fail and you’ll be the most desperate person on the floor.
Do these make you feel the worst of your life? Have you felt sometimes that there is a drought of victories in your life? Every evening after returning from company, felling tired, do you think that God has forsaken you?
Look at Stephen! A man of God, preached the good news of the Kingdom with all his strength, didn’t receive a round of applause from his audience but a sound of gnashing of their teeth. When Stephen finished his message, people were angrily looked at him and gnashed their teeth. They are pouring down their hatred on him. They are ready to stone him to death. But look at Stephen. Look at where his eyes were. When the whole world is displaying their hater on him, he gently looks at heaven and sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
In Acts 6:8, the Bible tells that he was doing great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. At that time, he would have got eulogistic words, bouquets, garlands and silk shawls from the people. Soaked on the praises of people, he would have looked at the heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Look, it is easy to see the glory of God, when you are at positives but it is divine to see the glory of God in the midst of hardships and persecution like Stephen, Paul and Jesus Christ.
Don’t let the circumstances kill you everyday, try to master it. We have a God who is above all our circumstances. Your present problem may be seen as a giant for you today but after a certain period of time, you don’t even remember this problem. Everyday, you’ll have to meet different sorts of trouble in your life. If you start to cry for every one of that, then you will not have days to live a happy life on this earth.
Let your eyes be on our God, who is able to turn the circumstances upside down. I want to you to notice the life of Daniel from the Bible. The King ordered to burn everyone who worships Jehovah but Daniel was not moved by the circumstance. Despite the King’s order, he was going by his daily routine to pray thrice a day. He didn’t even change the place and the style of his prayer because his eyes were always fixed on the God Almighty, who can turn the history topsy-turvy.
We have an enormous amount of examples to look at in the Bible. If you still start to cry for each and every one of your circumstances, it is totally meaningless. Today, take a decision that you won’t be gloomy for every little negatives events in your job or for every little loses in you life. Today you lose and the next day you gain. It is all a part of our life. Be confident that God is with you, who is able to turn loses into victory.
Again, I want you to stare at Stephen, who sees the glory of God among his difficulties. Pray, meditate on God’s words and commit whatever you do in the hands of God. He will certainly make you succeed.
Despite the circumstances, be happy.
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