Even though we are Christians there are times we face extremities in our lives with health, employment, finances, family and other things but we must not be discouraged, depressed, frustrated, and angry with God, ourselves and others; because when we face extremities we will find that it is God's opportunity to step in if we will continue to believe He is at work in our situations. I want to help you right from the start with this important statement: If you are ever angry with God or frustrated with Him, you are only doing yourself harm because God is never your problem when you face problems, difficulties or extremities in your life.

If you think God is the problem then you will never find the answer to your problems because He is the answer to all things. God does not want you to live in fear, worry and anxiety because when you live in fear, worry or anxiety you are trusting in your own abilities and not in God's ability. He wants you to have good courage and put your total trust in Him so that He can show Himself strong in your life. Always remember this, when you run out of yourself, your abilities then is when you will always run into God and His ability! Facing extremities you need to settle in your heart this is God's opportunity to step in and it is your time to continue to believe He is at work. Realizing this truth will help you to be more enticed to trust Him. You need to continue to remind yourself there is no failure in God, there is no defeat in God and there is no deficiency in God. You must remember this to have courage in discouraging times. My definition of courage is the ability to see victory or the ability to see good things happen when things look bad, look their worst and look like they will never change.

Courage is the ability to conquer fear or despair, to be brave or have a quality of mind or temperament that enables you to stand fast in the face of opposition, hardship or danger. We can see godly courage in operation in the life of Joshua in the Old Testament. God told him, Joshua 1:6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Those words, "Be strong and of good courage," came to Joshua when God gave him the assignment of leading the children of Israel into their promised land after Moses had died. All of us have dealt with discouragement which can lead us into depression. We try to make things work, make something happen, try to do what is right; but yet it seems nothing is changing, nothing is ever going to turn out right and so the enemy uses discouragement so we will let go of our faith in God. But being developed in godly courage there is a power available to you enabling you to have good courage in discouraging times. With godly courage you could be facing health problems, family problems, financial hardships, or other kinds of difficulties but you still won't give up, still won't lose heart, still won't quit, but will stand still right in the middle of it all trusting God is at work for you. God has promised you a lot in His New Covenant He has with you and you need godly courage in order to possess what God has promised you and in order to do what God wants you to do. You need to realize when God promises to give you something it is not going to come to you automatically. You have an enemy that opposes you. Your faith life or walk in faith is a faith fight. Paul said, "I fought a good fight. I kept the faith. I finished my course."

This fight of faith has to be finished. In the process of starting the fight and finishing the fight there are going to be times, even though it is yours and God already said it is yours, you will have to have courage to trust God and stay in there and finish the fight in order to obtain the promise. Even though you see it in the Word and you know it is yours; sometimes it will look like you can't have the promise. That's the time you are going to have to have good courage. That's why God repeatedly told Joshua to be of good courage. .../To be continued