Life is full of experiences. Sometimes you succeed, win, lose, or fail. How does it feel in each of those circumstances? Do you allow your feelings to decide what you will do or the truth? Think about the experiences that have most impacted your life. Why do they stick out over other experiences? These are the experiences that shape how you think and drive you in how you live now.
Experiences are different from abilities, but they tend to hold hands. What you succeed in tends to determine the direction you take in life. Your abilities are the catalyst that produces an outcome from experience.
Life experiences have five aspects to your life: spiritual, religion, pain, failure, and victory. All aspects are important in shaping your life. The spiritual is what happens in your heart, mind, and spirit. It is personal and intimate. It factors how you view scripture and your response to it. Samuel and Paul are great examples in how to react to encountering God.
Religious education is seen in Paul. You allow opportunities to influence your religious views. It can provide credibility with your knowledge base, but it means nothing without salvation. It can take years to become a Biblical scholar, but it can be time well invested too.
We all experience pain in life. No one dealt with as much as Jesus. Pain can be used to help you relate to other people. It can enable you to comfort them because you have experienced it too. At the same time pain can block you from seeing your purpose because what you are going through consumes everything. Jesus is the only one that can help you see past the pain.
Peter shows us how to handle failure. Failure normally accompanies fear. If you can get past your fear, then God will use the experience for something wonderful. Failure is not defeat. It can be a new beginning. It can help you change direction in life. Humility can be gained in failure
Victory can be seen in Jacob. He shows how victory is not always an enjoyable experience. As long as it glorifies God, then it is good. Your personal victories may be insignificant to other people, but worth celebrating for you. Do not let other people's perspectives influence how you handle your victories. A victory may not be rewarding in the traditional sense or even enjoyable, but it has purpose. Victories are meant to motivate you in the future, so take the time to accept them as they happen.
Genesis 32:27-29, 1 Samuel 3:1-21, Matthew 26:69-75, Acts 2:36-37, 9:1-18, 17:16-34, 26:4-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, & Hebrews 2:16-18, 5:7-10
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