When Trials Keep Coming

Posted on Dec 2, 2011 in Blog | 19 comments

Thanks for joining me. Well, the season is over. I am referring to the racing season and I gotta tell you, it was a tough finish for us with a lot of adversity. First of all, let me just talk about the race team in particular. Here are some of the things that happened to us down the stretch.

Our #18 car was penalized in Dallas and we had to sit out a race. That causes all kinds of problems. If you are a race fan, you kind of followed that. We then turn around with two of our cars in the Chase and we finished 9th and 12th. So we had a dismal Chase for all of our sponsors and everybody here at Joe Gibbs Racing. Then we turned around and lost our Nationwide Owners Championship by 3 spots on the race track. I can definitely tell you it was a tough finish for the season. It’s true we had 5 wins in Cup. We had a bunch of wins in Nationwide. But certainly the finish of the season was a struggle.

There’s also been a lot of adversity for me personally. For the last three months, it seems like there has been wave after wave after wave of adversity. Pat probably said it best the other night when she said to me – “it just keeps coming doesn’t it?” And I looked at her and commented “that’s correct”. Don’t get me wrong but there have been some good things in there too but in general this has been one of the toughest periods of my life as far as dealing with a lot of things here with the race team and personally in my life. I just wonder if some of you are going through some adversity like that.

I wanted to start today with just sharing some of my feelings that I have had during this 3-month period of ongoing “trouble”. First of all, I have a tendency (and I am confessing to you) to say “oh my gosh – this is overwhelming!” So that is one of the feelings I have. The second one I have is discouragement. In J. Vernon McGee’s Bible commentary he says that discouragement is the devil’s greatest weapon. During these discouraging times, I really have to fight against it. The other thing that I feel is trouble. I also have to confess to you when I pull all of this together I am fearful. Maybe you are going through something that is similar and it feels like it just keeps coming. But as I kind of went through that, there is a lot of encouragement here.

My hope is that this will encourage you. During this three months of adversity, I can honestly tell you that God’s word seems to come alive. I look back at times in my past where there have been adverse situations which I have detailed with you on this website. It seems like God’s word really comes to life and that’s great when in the mornings you start with Him and in the evenings before you go to bed – standing in God’s word – it seems to come alive for me. I am going to give you six things that have encouraged me and I am going to share these with you and maybe some of these will ring a bell for you or encourage you some time when you are going through tough times.

First, a verse just jumped out at me and it was John 14:27. God says “I give you peace”. That’s what He wants for us – peace. He says it is not what the world gives. What He is saying is that it is His peace. We can have His peace and it also says that your heart may not be troubled or fearful and that’s exactly what I was feeling. I think it would be a real encouragement for you if you want to read this verse if you are going through tough times.

The second thing I would like to share with you is a little story where Jesus was on the Sea of Galilee when He told his disciples to go to the other side of the sea. They started across and they went right in to a huge storm. Now think about that. Jesus knew it was there because He knows everything so he sent his disciples right into it. I think the encouragement that comes from this is that Jesus wanted to use that as a teaching moment. There were some things he wanted to say to them when He came to them and calmed the waters. I think another thing it says to us is that we can be in the midst of adversity and still have real peace, be in God’s will and claiming that as a tough time for us knowing that we are in God’s will. It doesn’t mean that He is mad at us. It means He is using it as a teaching experience. We can still be in God’s will and still be in an adverse time.

The third thing is Jehoshaphat. I have used this before too but this encouraged me during this tough time. If you remember, King Jehoshaphat was told there was a vast army coming against him. You got no chance. This army in numbers would overwhelm your army. At first, he was fearful and then he though about this – in the past God has always been faithful. So he called all of his people together and they prayed. Then in the end he made this statement that really jumped out at me. This might be a good statement for all of us – “God, I don’t know what to do but I am going to keep my eyes on you”. In other words, nothing is too big for God. That was very, very encouraging to me.

The fifth thing I would like to share with you is that I want to make sure that I stay focused on Him – not on men. Many times men do what? They disappoint us. We need to stay focused on Him. It seems like every time I take that approach when I’m thinking about something and people are involved with it, I need to keep my focus on God. It seems to give me a relaxing feeling.

The last thing I would share with you is that we just have to remember that God says in His word and we feel in our heart that He loves us more than we love our own children or grandchildren. Now we have an all powerful God that loves us more than we could love anyone else. Isn’t that a great statement? That leads me to the last point. This fits in with the six points if you are going through real adversity. If you remember, there is a story in the Bible where the Kings of Israel were marching – that’s Judah and Edam – against the evil King Moab. Basically what happens to them is that they wound up in a valley and they were out of water. They have their vast army there and all the Kings were saying “we are going to die right here”. So they decided to get Elijah, God’s prophet, and see what he has to say. Elijah comes on the scene and he tells the Kings

what God is saying. God wants you to dig ditches in this valley. I’m sure they all went “what – dig ditches in a valley?” Elijah said God says to dig ditches in this valley and be faithful. Then he told them they were going to see no signs. You are going to see no clouds. There will be no indication of rain here. That’s what I feel going through what I have in the last 3 months. There are no signs and nothing to encourage me. But Elijah says this all powerful God is going to fill this valley with water and that’s what happened the next day. Then God said to the Kings – “this is an easy thing for me to do”.

So many times when we are in the middle of adversity like I have been lately, I am trying to claim that. I want to keep digging ditches. I am going after it. I want to be faithful. I might not see any signs now but in the past God has always been there. He has always been there for me. Even though I don’t see any signs – if we keep digging the ditches, God can do anything – so in my life I am claiming the fact He is going to fill the valley with water for me.

I want to refer you to our website www.gameplanforlife.com. We have some new articles on the website. One of them is on Sean Taylor who if you remember was a great athlete for the Redskins who lost his life the last year I coached up there. The name of the article is “Character of a Leader”. It’s the fourth year anniversary of his death. Another article is “Memorable Thanksgiving Games in the NFL”. NFL fans might like that. We have one on Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson titled “Who is the Best 2-Sport Athlete?” We have some upcoming articles I think you will be excited about:

Top Ten Larry Byrd Moments
Struggles and Addictions of Athletes
Top Ten Steven Spielberg Movies

We have the first thing out on our Zondervan project – our New Testament Study Bible. It’s “Game Plan for Life –Essentials of the Christian Faith”. If you would like one of these, just go to the website and we would love to send you one free of charge. Then we came out with our Game Plan for Life group study published by LifeWay.

Thank you for joining me today. If any of you are going through adversity right now, I think you and I share that there are things we can get from God’s word to encourage us.