The Cards You've Been Delt

Here are my notes from Pastor Travis's message, "The Cards You've Been Delt".

Just like we play cards, we've all been given cards in life.

James 1:2 - "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy"

The cards we've been delt are OUR cards. We cant change or exchange them. God has delt us THOSE cards, and has a plan for all of them. We ask, WHY God, why these cards. Then we also get some good cards along with the ones we dont like. We may have a great sense of humor and we love the fact that we can make ppl laugh. We love to show off the cards that we like. But we may not like the fact that we are short for our age, prideful, arrogant, get jealous easy, etc. We may have been delt the card of divorce, and we want to hide our "bad" cards behind the good ones. We compare our cards to our friends cards, and get mad at God. Why cant we have our friends card? Why cant we have that?? We ask why he make that person die, or made us an emotional person, etc. God does not make anything bad happen in our lifes. He doesnt go, oh you've sinned so i am going to punish you. God is a God of grace. God did not make the death of a loved one happen. He let all that stuff happen so that you can become the person you are. So you can gain strength and wisdom. The "bad" cards are the ones that will make you into the person God has called you to be. They will make you stronger in life if you let God do with them what he wants. Be happy about them.