Are You Living as a Victim or Thriving as a Victor?

Are you a victim or a victor?

Some of you immediately jumped up with boldness to proclaim your victory and some of you may have shrunk at the pain behind your answer of “victim”.

I get it, I am you, sunken into my seat at first thought of my experiences that marked me a victim. I understand that the pain does not allow for any thought of victory. Often I’ve heard my thoughts scream “You don’t understand what I went through!” “You can’t possibly get me!”

So I want you to push past these thoughts as I tell you about my night. My family and I went to church tonight and as always I ask God to speak to me in a new way, to answer the questions that I struggle with daily, and to let me feel his presence. At the end of the night, I was crying through the worship songs. He followed through.

I know you have experienced pain and suffering in your life. I don’t feel the need to ask you because I am pretty certain that you have. We all experience suffering in our life and the severity of it does not change the fact that we still feel pain throughout these experiences.

"We all experience suffering in our life and the severity of it does not change the fact that we still feel pain throughout these experiences."

Even though pain is common, it still feels uncommon, like it shouldn’t have happened. We feel alone in our experiences and certain that nobody else has felt the way we feel right now. This apparent solitude leads to feeling like we are victims of life’s cruel path.

So if we all experience pain and suffering why do some people jump with joy to proclaim VICTORY!?

Tonight God gave me a new way to look at suffering.

Jesus Knows Suffering.

He more than anyone on earth has experienced the unimaginable. His life is a testament to what a being can withstand. Yet, he went through it, chose not to give up and He used his pain for good, Our Good.

Any pain we feel, He has felt himself.

Any struggle, He understands.

Because of this, he walks next to us as we suffer and he helps us carry the weight. He shares our pain and uses ALL of it for our own good. Sometimes we can’t see YET where this pain we’re experiencing is going to help us, how it’ll make our life better or give us joy but, it will.

All of our suffering is part of God’s bigger story of VICTORY.

In the End, He Will Win. And we win with him. It’s all part of the plan He has for our life. What may seem like meaningless torture can be a defining moment in your life that will lead you to a greater destiny. People who no longer see themselves as victims understand that the bad stuff in life is what leads to the good stuff.

When we get this, when we finally understand that our pain isn’t permanent, and no matter how horrible, it will bring us joy, we CLAIM VICTORY. When you know you are going to win the game, the bumps and bruises hurt less. Instead of struggles stopping you in your tracks, they propel you.

“Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.” – 2 Corinthians 3:12

If we know that ALL will turn out good, that we can’t lose when we’re on God’s Team, then we can go through life seeing struggles as good things.

It’s up to us to choose whether we feel like a victim or a victor during life’s struggles.

So, I am choosing VICTORY.

What do you want to choose?

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If you would like to watch these services you can tune in online at 6:30 Mst on Tuesday’s and Fridays @ Waypoints.church