Storm Chasers

“Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” - Colossians 1:11-12
 
 
Yesterday we talked about ignoring bad advice. If you want to pursue the destiny God has designed for you, it is going to involve challenges, trials, and storms. And the key is not to run from those storms but embrace them head on. By running away and not facing life’s storms, it prevents us from developing the skills, the insights, and the spiritual muscles that God wants us to have.  
 
Think about it. Storm chasers are individuals whose job isn’t to run from a storm, but to run into a storm; and their objective is to gain valuable insight and information that will equip the public on the best ways to withstand storms in the future. Not if they happen, but when they happen. They cannot learn from it if they keep running away from it.  
 
And conversely, we cannot learn if we keep running away from ours either. You will never learn how to fight by running from a fight. You will never learn the lesson of forgiveness running away from those you need to forgive. You will never learn the lesson of endurance giving up on every hard challenge and every difficult obstacle. That is why one of the fruit of the spirit is long-suffering.  
 
Long-suffering is the God-given ability to endure overtime for a greater cause. I wish I could tell you that the Christian experience never involved any storms, but it does and sometimes God uses those storms to perfect His purpose in our lives. Colossians 1:11 tells us to be “strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.”
 
Have you let someone give you bad advice? Rather than staying and standing, have you been fleeing? When you are running, you are not learning. Be a storm chaser; embrace the challenges set before you. They are not going away. But learning from them and growing in them is what you need to prepare you for where you are trying to go.
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