Turn It Around: A Different Direction for a New Life - Hardcover

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Frank Santora is pastor of Faith Church. He also serves as president of Faith Ministries and Faith Preparatory Schools, Inc., in New Milford, Connecticut. He has been a spiritual coach and motivational speaker, and his television show, Destined to Win, challenges people to discover the winner within themselves. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

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LOOK ING FOR THE GOOD IN LIFE


HAS LIFE EVER HANDED you a double whammy? In 2007 life clobbered me with a classic one-two punch, hitting me with a blow to my church ministry for starters and then following with a jab to my personal finances. It all started when the school the church operates saw it’s budget reduced by $350,000. When you have teachers’ salaries to pay, that’s not a loss you can shrug off. The second blow came when a bank loan my wife and I were relying on for a business venture fell through. Based on the bank’s commitment letter, we had signed a land lease and hired contractors. Then the bank dropped out right before closing, and suddenly we had a several thousand dollar monthly lease, contractors wanting payment, and no loan to cover any of it.

I didn’t know where our church was going to get the money to keep the school going. And I didn’t know where I was going to get the money to keep our business going.

I began having sleepless nights. Often I would lie awake, with either the church needs or our family finances, or both, running through my mind. In the middle of the night I would get up and grab my journal and write prayers to God, feebly pleading for help. Then I would wait for God to give me wisdom. I’d sit for three or four hours, waiting for God to do something, to answer me, to give me something—anything—but nothing would come. I wouldn’t feel any better; I would feel worse. Soon I was thinking, Why do I even bother praying? I feel worse now! Or, Why isn’t God giving me an answer to any of this? This went on night after night.

I suspect you’ve had times in your life like that. Maybe you’re going through that time right now—not in the details, of course, but sometimes it’s not the details that matter; it’s what you’re feeling.

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  Feeling that you’re headed down the wrong road
  
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  Feeling that you’ve blown it
  
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  Feeling that no one believes in you
  
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  Feeling that you’ve walked away from God and can’t ever get back
  
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  Feeling that things are out of your control
  
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  Feeling that you’re trapped and have nowhere to go
  
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  Feeling that in a world of billions of people, there couldn’t possibly be anything special about you
  

It doesn’t matter if you feel all of these things or just one. You desperately want a way to turn life around.

I felt that desperation in 2007. My sleepless nights had me questioning everything, from the real to the absurd. I was trapped in what Max Lucado calls the “Whaddiffs and Howells.”1 What if I had waited to sign that lease? How will we keep the school open? What if what I’m hoping for doesn’t happen? How will we pay for our children’s education? My mind was in turmoil, and my body and soul joined in.

One morning, after another sleepless night, I spent some time—as I do every morning—with God. At first I just shared my hurt with him as I always did, telling him how overwhelmed I was and how hopeless things seemed to me—as if he didn’t already know that. All of a sudden, in the midst of my pitiful complaints, the Holy Spirit took over. Instead of sharing my hurts with God, I began to share my heart with him. I went from telling God how overwhelmed I was to saying how much I loved him and needed him.

That’s when God spoke directly to my heart. And this is what he said: “Don’t worry. I work all things together for the good for those who love me and are called according to my purpose.”

That promise is also found in Romans 8:28. Now, I realize there’s probably a strict theological meaning to that verse, but sometimes we can destroy a verse of Scripture by getting so theological with it that we miss what God is saying to us directly in our moment of need. So when God said that to me, I simply heard, “Don’t worry, my son. I will turn it around.” And then, because pastors can be just as hardheaded as the next guy, God took everything I’d been thinking… and answered. Into all my feelings of doubt and despair, God inserted his promises:

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  I will turn your life around when you’re on the wrong road.
  
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  I will turn your life around when you’ve blown it.
  
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  I will turn your life around when no one believes in you.
  
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  I will turn your life around when you’ve walked away from me.
  
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  I will turn your life around when things are out of your control.
  
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  I will turn your life around when you’re trapped and have nowhere to go.
  
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  I will turn your life around because you’re special to me.
  

Those words may not sound like much to you now, but they meant everything to me when I needed help. I immediately stopped what I was doing and ran to my nightstand drawer, pulled out a notepad and the stubbiest little pencil you ever saw, and began to write down God’s promises. At first I was writing just for myself; but then I realized that God wasn’t speaking only to me. He sends that same message to all of us. Every moment of our lives, God offers these promises to us. He reminds us of these promises again and again through our own lives and the lives of others. We just have to stop and notice.

That’s the first step—realizing that God can be doing good things for us in the midst of all that is happening to us, even when we can’t see any good. We must look for and focus on those good things. If we don’t—if we persist in focusing only on the negative things that are troubling us—we’ll be trapped in the very rut from which we want to escape.

Let’s look at that verse that God spoke to my heart: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Notice that God didn’t say he causes bad things; neither did he say that everything that happens is good. But he did say that, for those who love him, he will bring good out of all the bad things that happen. That verse tells us—promises us—that even in the midst of bad, God is causing good to take place. Even though we think our lives are falling apart, we need to look for the good. It may feel to us like we’re in a whirlwind, but if we trust in God, if we look with the eyes of faith, we’ll see in the end that God was at work. Even though God isn’t pulling the strings on the bad events, his divine hand of providence is on everything; he is causing those stressful, painful, horrible circumstances to turn around for our good. When we look for the good, we find so many incredible things that we never would have seen if we hadn’t looked for them in the midst of our troubles.

Looking for good isn’t usually our first inclination when we experience trouble. It’s not always easy, but we can get better at it with a little awareness and practice. One way we can learn to look for the good God is doing in our lives is by observing the good God has accomplished in others through their difficulties. Numerous stories tell of good emerging from the midst of troubling or even disastrous circumstances. For example, in 1883 a devastating tornado tore through Rochester, Minnesota, killing and injuring many in the small city. A local surgeon named William Worrall Mayo and his two sons—also skilled physicians—labored day and night to care for the tornado victims. They asked for no reward, responding only out of concern for others. Moved by their efforts, Mother...