Whatever you’re going through right now, yes this present mess or stress, understand God is using it to prepare you for the role you will play in the future. You are being strengthened and refined today for a tomorrow full of purpose. We can make it through most anything if we know it’s for a purpose. If we know the path is taking us somewhere good we can stick with it. It’s when we lose faith in the destination that we wander off path and get stuck.

God has a plan for you. He has a destination in mind for your life. A purpose that is a perfect fit for you in every way. A future that uses your every talent and every experience, making you the absolute ideal person for the job. No one else will be able to do this like you. But maybe you don’t see that future yet. Maybe God hasn’t revealed his plans to you … will you still trust him? Will you still trust that he has a plan, it’s a good plan, you haven’t screwed that plan up, you haven’t missed out on the plan, and everything you’re going through right now is simply preparing you better for that plan. Ahhhh, feel the release right there? You’ve been trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders all while God has been saying, “girl, if you’ll turn that over to me the whole world fits perfectly in the palm of my hand.”

My son is a 20 year old soldier in the US Army. I’m in El Paso, TX visiting him for the first time in over a year. When he left our home In July 2018, he was a boy full of potential. Potential to change the world, or potential to ruin his own. If you’re raising teens, you know exactly what I’m talking about! There’s a whole lot of potential for good and bad wrapped up inside our teens who are wrestling to figure out who they are in the world. Who I see today is a man becoming who he was always created to be.

Let me be real clear, the only way the good potential won out over the bad potential was HARDSHIP. He went through the hardest struggle and training of his life. He had zero comforts from home, no mama to protect him, and no daddy to tell him what to do. He wasn’t playing warrior video games, he was in real life warrior training. Only the most extreme pressures could have made this impact. Only the most stressful of circumstances could have strengthened and refined him in this way, this quickly.

I’m convinced if he would have stayed home, suckling on the ‘teet’ of comfort, he wouldn’t be half the man he is today. He was made to be strengthened in the struggle and be refined in the fire. AND SO WERE YOU!

You see, we want change while we want everything to stay the same. Life simply doesn’t work that way. Just as my son couldn’t become a warrior sitting in my basement playing Call of Duty, you can’t become the woman God created you to be living in comfort. Comfortable living leads to unmet potential. Comfortable living leads to drifting. Comfortable living leads to the bad outweighing the good. Comfortable living leads to boredom, and it’s in the boredom we make bad choices and settle for bad lives. Comfortable living leads to future disappointment where you wake up one day miserable in a life you don’t like, looking in the mirror at a person you no longer recognize, without the energy to do anything about it. And your creator loves you so darn much that he just won’t let you sit there in comfort to waste away.

This is why he has shaken your world up. Perhaps this is why he has allowed your current disaster. It’s so that you don’t miss the life available to you. It’s so that you are prepared for the role you’re going to play in the future. There’s a warrior inside of you and she simply couldn’t come out with the way things used to be. The life you really want isn’t easy, it’s fulfilling. Fulfilling lives are filled with risk and rewards, hardship and happiness, struggle and success. The fulfilling life you seek isn’t found in the safe protection of your comfort zone.

Step on out now warrior, you’re in training! Training for a better, bigger, more fulfilling life. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!

I have two go-to scriptures for warrior training:

Genesis 50: 20 says “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Romans 8: 28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

And during training, I have a prayer:

Psalm 51:10 says “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

Isn’t that what we need … a steadfast spirit. A spirit that refuses to give up. A spirit that believes God is doing something in the middle of this mess and it’s part of your training to live a better life.

The Message translation says it like this “God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.” Genesis represents the beginning of all things. God, please give us a week that will be the beginning of something new in our lives. Make that fresh start begin right inside of me.

So here’s your choice today. As things are harder than you expected, as things take longer than you anticipated, as you are faced with tough decisions and stressful circumstances, you have a choice … GET BITTER OR GET BETTER.

Why is the US Army training so hard, so dramatic, so intense? Because they’re creating warriors to protect our freedom. Warriors can’t be woosies. Warriors can’t be weak. Warriors can’t be pitiful. Warriors can’t be bitter. The best warriors always choose to get better. The bitter ones quickly fall to the bottom. The ones who chose to get better rise to the top. They excel. This is why it’s hard. It’s part of the training. They’re separating the masses to find the ones who will get better.

Will that be you? Will you take your current circumstances and choose to let them make you better? Will you take what has the potential of making you bitter and INSIST that you will rise above and become better because of it? You will have every right to complain about what has happened. You will have every right to tell your sob story to anyone who will listen. You could put that victim label on and wear your pain for the rest of your days. You could do that. And that’s your reward. That’s where it ends. All your god given potential stops there.

How sad would it be to one day stand before your creator and hear him say “I allowed this to touch your life because I knew it would make you better. I wanted to use it to strengthen you for an important role I had in mind for you. But you didn’t use it. You didn’t see what I was doing. You didn’t get better, you became bitter.”

Don’t let that be you. Shake off any layers of bitterness you may have been piling on. Let’s just acknowledge right here, right now, what happened to you wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. You didn’t deserve that. It shouldn’t have happened.

Now, can we leave it there? Will you refuse to pick it back up again? Will you decide from this day forward what has happened to you will make you BETTER, not bitter. Open your eyes wide to see how God is using every ounce of harm the enemy intended in your life for good now. Nothing is wasted with our God, not when you refuse to get bitter.

THIS IS YOUR WARRIOR TRAINING.

God is changing your life and preparing you for future roles. That process isn’t always pretty and certainly isn’t easy. But doesn’t it make it more tolerable knowing everything is for a purpose? Stand up tall beautiful warrior, you’re in training for a dynamic role in your future. You’re being strengthened and refined for something worth living for. You’ll get there. You’ll step into your destiny if you refuse to get bitter and choose to get better.