Your Starting Point

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” (Nido Qubein)

“. . . and I am the least in my father’s house.” (Judges 6:15, ESV)

The book of Judges is full of times when the children of Israel rebelled against God and paid the price through subjugation to their enemies. Then, after each time of being trodden down, they cried out to the Lord for deliverance, and He answered their pleas. One of those times was when He raised up Gideon. I won’t go into much detail, other than to say that Gideon was pretty much a nobody in his father’s house, and they were pretty much nondescript in the tribe of Manasseh, and the tribe of Manasseh was fairly weak in the nation of Israel. Needless to say, he didn’t have much hope of attaining to anything.

The point I’m getting at is that there a whole lot of “victims” out there. At the same time there are a whole lot of true victims out there who have become a Gideon.

It seems that far too many people are laying blame for the bad decisions they make on what they’ve had to go through. Yes, many have had to deal with some intense circumstances and experiences in their lives. But there are many who have gone through the same things, and sometimes more intense things, and have allowed those things to shape their lives into something positive.

Now, I realize that there are multitudes who don’t want anything to do with God. They have no use for Him, they disdain Him, and they have no use for anybody who claims a belief in Him. There are also those who are on the opposite side of the spectrum. But whatever their views are, the fact remains that many have risen above what they once were; so it may appear as though their success is a result of their efforts.

Everyone who has ever attained any amount of success in life, however, all have one thing in common: they’ve all came to the conclusion that, though they were at a low point financially or spiritually or mentally or emotionally or in any other way, they weren’t going to stay there. No matter what it was going to take, they were going to make something positive of their lives.

There’s something else that every one of them has in common, though many don’t recognize it: every single one of these are the result of the Lord. He put in them the desire to ascend. Again, many can do all the denying of Him that they want, but He extends mercy and strength and a positive desire to them as well as to those who believe in Him and profess Him. After all, in the days of Gideon there were multitudes of His people who had rebellious hearts, yet He delivered them as well as the faithful. As Jesus said, “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45, ESV).

What I’m getting at is: though many have to deal with circumstances and events in their lives that are serious and life-changing and have some severe affects, still, there are many who are going through or have gone through similar and sometimes worse things, yet who have pulled themselves up and out. The reason in EVERY one of those instances, whether many don’t want to recognize Him, is the Lord. He is the One Who allows everything in the lives of every person, and He’s the One Who allows the opportunities. Many may not acknowledge Him, but they recognize the opportunities; while others acknowledge Him and hear His voice.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying that we attain any success solely through the Lord alone. He allows us to recognize the opportunities, but He also requires us to put the effort into acquiring those opportunities and learning how to grow through them. In a sense, it’s a joint partnership.

Unfortunately, there are far too many people who are claiming “victimhood”. Instead of recognizing and acknowledging that they can have opportunities to advance above where they’re at, as others in similar situations have done, they instead try to take advantage of whatever they can in ways that are destructive to others and to themselves. Yes, there are many who are between a rock and a hard place, but they aren’t allowing that to keep them down.

This could get to be fairly extensive; so, before I get in too much further, I just want to say one more thing. The Lord allows every one of us to go through things in our lives that we all have to overcome. And, though many do, many also do not. But the day is going to come when every person is going to have to recognize that God has been the One Who has allowed what has been, and that He’s expected us to acknowledge Him and to allow Him to help us to become like Him.

After all, our circumstances merely determine where we start.