David Foster - The Power to Prevail: Turning Your Adversities into Advantages

Copyright 2003 by David Foster All rights reserved.

Hero 1993 Sony/ATV Songs LLC, Stay Straight Music, Hidden Pun Music. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Songs LLC & Stay Straight Music administered by Sony/ATV Music Pub., 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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ISBN: 978-0-7595-2822-2

First eBook Edition: August 2003

Adversity Is Not Optional

The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

SENECA

L ife is hard. It is hard by the yard, by the inch, by the day, by the hour, and sometimes by the minute. It shouldnt be, but it is.

Gods ideal was a paradise called Eden. Into this lush, idyllic, and perfect world, he planted our parents, Adam and Eve. He gave them the one power that separated them from all of Gods creation: the power to choose. And the choices they made then continue to make trouble for us now. When they chose to have it their own way by disobeying God, they turned their advantages into adversities. Since that time, adversity has not been optional for anyone in any age.

Since none of us like adversity, we dream of a time and place where life could be ordered up like the perfect meal. What would you choose if someone handed you a Preferred Life Menu, on which you could find everything needed for the perfect life?

Maybe you would start out with the basics: happiness, health, and enough money to enjoy both and worry about neither. You would certainly want good friends and a family that loves you. No doubt, you would want meaningful work for which you got handsomely paid, along with a reputation for staggering success, yet without sacrificing plenty of free time for rest and recreation. If you are the daring type, you might order a dessert of real-life adventures able to take you to exotic locations where you could accomplish amazing feats of bravery. And for after-dinner entertainment, you might want to hang out with the rich and famous.

Im reasonably confident that you would choose some or all of these things. But the one thing Im betting you would not choose would be a heaping helping of hard times. Who in his or her right mind goes out looking for trouble? The answer is, no one doesand they dont have to. In the real world, trouble comes looking for you. Life has a way of getting hard overnight as well as over time and without warning. The world you sit on top of one day can roll over on you the next. Still, we dream of that risk-free, safe world. We sail on in our search for a secure harbor and friendly waters.

Our natural aversion to adversity, along with a strong desire for adventure, may help to explain why we have built the most safety-conscious culture of all time. In our zeal to avoid risk we have ended up settling for Life Litea slice of the zest and excitement weve always wanted, but with none of the bitter taste of adversity that goes hand in hand with an adventurous soul living in a dangerous world.

Early life lessons on how to ride a two-wheel bike felt as natural to me as chewing gum and walking at the same time. Not once did I consider, nor did my parents insist, that I wear a nerdy-looking safety helmet. I knew that occasionally I would fall off my bike and that I should try to avoid failing headfirst. I fully realized that life and danger go hand in hand and I respected thatbut I didnt know enough to feel paralyzed by it. I merely accepted that falling is a part of living, as is getting back up after the fall.

But things have changed in our safety-obsessed society. Today, loving parents wouldnt think of letting their children ride a bike or a skateboard without a helmet, elbow pads, kneepads, mirrors on the handlebars, reflective tape on the fenders, and a bell in an easy-to-reach position. And just in case a few daredevil parents might still be running around out there, our guardian, the government, mandates that the nations children wear helmets.

We have become protection-conscious and alarmed to the teeth. Safety devices that warn, scream, scare, and call for help hang from our belts, get wired into our cars and computers, and built into our homes. And while I, too, avoid adversity whenever possible, I cant help but wonder if we havent traded the joy and adventure that are life itself for the uneasy comfort of easily circumvented and often-broken high-tech safety devices. Dont get me wrong. I am for safetybut do we really want a fail-safe world, or a safe-to-fail world?

Even religion has gotten into the act. People flock to hear fair-weather sermons delivered by power-suited preachers who promise the good life with God. In an attempt to attract men and women back to God and make Jesus more appealing, every Sunday of the year fast-moving discourses focus more on our happiness than our holiness.

Parishioners get fed a steady diet of faith formulas and religious moralisms. They receive superficial steps on how to be more like Moses, be more like David, be bold and fearless like John the Baptist, be aggressive like Peter or strategic like Paul, or just be more like Jesus in every wayand life, they hear, will become easier, healthier, happier, and, most important of all, more prosperous.

And I wonder, What Bible are these people reading?

Moses lived in desert exile for more than forty years. David committed adultery and had to flee from his own son, who wanted him dead. John the Baptist lost his head to an executioners sword. Peter died on a cross. Paul got locked in prison until the Romans finally killed him. Jesus suffered betrayal, beatings, and crucifixion. No one who walked with God by faith failed to slog through long, hellish periods of adversity, ranging from the loss of basic creature comforts to running for their very lives.

Adversity is not optional, especially with God!

Jesus himself said, In this world you will have tribulation. He insisted that we can expect doses of not just trouble, but tribulation. Tribulation is trouble on steroidsbut thats only where it begins. In the same breath Jesus also said, Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John 16:33 KJV). He meant that a real-life encounter with the ultimate Overcomer is no mere life-enhancing option, but a soul-saving, trouble-transforming necessity.

So if thats the case, then where are the clarion voices extolling the virtues of the overcoming power (not the go-around power) of the resurrected Christ? Today we hear about six quick ways to fix whats wrong, or seven simple steps to cope with stress, or ten towering techniques for getting what we want now. But simplistic solutions can never yield an effortless victory. At best they produce disillusioned listeners who blame themselves; at worst, they blame God.

Too many of us long for a time and place that is neither hot nor cold. We like it mild. We dont like it black or white because weve gotten so used to beige. We dont like to sweat; thats why we created deodorant. Why would God allow someone to invent the umbrella and the elevator if he wanted us to walk in the rain or up the stairs? Today we have cars with CD players, video and stereo systems so that we can have all the comforts of home on the road. Some cars even have onboard GPS computers that do everything from giving directions to a favorite restaurant to unlocking car doors for forgetful drivers who left keys in the ignition.