In his book, Mud and the Masterpiece, John Burke writes about how we are created by God to be a masterpiece, but it may be hard to see with all the mud and muck in our lives. The masterpiece gets lost in the pain we face. We are all broken and needing grace - just like every other person we meet!

Some of the trials we’ve faced have come in the form of evil people who do evil things. Other times, we face hardships because of the fallen world in which we live. Disease, disasters, and destruction seem to be all around us.

We face challenges which are beyond what we think anyone could ever handle, yet somehow we are far more resilient than we think.

Over the course of a few weeks, two of our Gateway couples suffered one of life's greatest tragedies: they lost a baby. One was a newborn. One was three years old. As we spent time talking, crying, and praying together, I’ve learned something important from them: we may never understand why these tragedies happened, but we can experience the love of God and community acutely in these terrible moments.

When we face trials, we can use the pain as an excuse to walk away from God and walk away from relationships, or we can use the pain to run towards God and run towards relationships.

In a small group in Tarrytown near downtown Austin, a couple was sharing with us how they overcame the painful loss of their teenage daughter. She said: “I wanted to push God away. I wanted to push my husband away, but instead I held on to God and grabbed hold of my husband tighter.”

When going through the 12 steps as a church, I was encouraged by the Serenity Prayer. The Unchained series at Gateway Church in Austin helped each of us apply spiritual disciplines to our life to overcome a struggle, no matter what that struggle might be. You may be familiar with the first part which reads:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

That is so true and so inspiring and such a great prayer to sincerely pray, but I find the rest and less familiar part just as helpful.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.

Amen.

This world is not the way God intended it, but this is a temporary state. In this broken and messed up world, our hardships can become "the pathway to peace." We can trust Him no matter what may come.

(Rather than consider the ways we know God cares in the midst of the trials we face, we are going to focus on how to become tenacious in the midst of our trials. For more on “Does God Care?” read the notes or watch the message I shared at Gateway on that very topic).

For some of us, we face a trial in the form of a person. There are people in our life that we love who never quite loved us the way we wanted or needed, or we may be haunted by a broken relationship.

Some of us have relationships that have been broken over misunderstandings, unexpressed expectations, or with wounded people who don't know how to love us the way we would want them to love us. Even still, when you look back at your life, on what are you focused when it comes to your most difficult moments? Do you focus on the pain you experienced or on the good that came out of those moments? If a person hurt you, are you still processing how to respond or have you become embittered towards them or have you forgiven them (even if they have not ever asked for forgiveness)?

Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics. Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently.

The idea is that “being happy about one’s life" is very different than “being happy in one’s life." We can remember the results of the painful moments or focus on the pain of the experience. For example, if a woman focuses on the results of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth, then she is likely to have a child. She is happy about the memory. If she focuses on what she experienced in labor and delivery then she may never have another child again.

It is possible to shift your perspective and see that some of the people who hurt you were hurt by others, and you may be the one who experienced their displaced anger.

Do you know who you are? Do you realize how much grace you’ve been given? Are you willing to extend that same level of grace to others?

Ephesians 2:8-10 reads:

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

To become tenacious, remember who you are – broken and needing grace just like those who have hurt you.