Tag: Study Guide

The Message In Your Misfortunes

Published on by nickcady4 Comments
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts

Recently, in preparing the content for one of the chapters of the study guide I’m writing for my book, The God I Won’t Believe In: Facing Nine Common Barriers to Embracing Christianity, I came across this quote from Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

Justice Roberts was asked to give the commencement speech for his son’s graduating class, but the speech he gave was different than the advice and platitudes commonly given at such events. Rather than wishing them good luck, he essentially told them that he wished they would experience hardship, because of the important things which can only be learned through these experiences.

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why.

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.

I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time,

I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.

Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

What John Roberts says here is true. Some of the most formative moments in my life have been as a result of experiencing pain and hurt from other people. Sometimes we develop our most deeply held convictions and values as a result of negative experiences.

In ministry, I know that some of the most important lessons I’ve learned have been from negative examples and experiences, which I then determined not to replicate or perpetuate.

Sometimes we learn to treat people well, as a result of being treating poorly and realizing that it isn’t right.

If we are able to turn those negative experiences into positive lessons, rather than becoming bitter, it can be something that helps us grow more into the image of Christ.

This is why James is able to say: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

It’s why Paul is able to write that we, as Christians, rejoice not only in the hope of the glory of God, but we can also “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

May the painful things we experience in this life be used by God to shape us more into the image of Christ, to the glory of God, and may it better equip us to show the compassion and love of Christ to others.

Writing Update: Study Guide and New Book on the Way

Published on by nickcady2 Comments

Since my book, The God I Won’t Believe In: Facing Nine Common Barriers to Embracing Christianity came out in March of 2022, I have been encouraged and glad to hear from many people who say the book has been a helpful resource and an encouragement to them.

Several groups have told me that that they have used the book for group studies, for small groups at their church and for youth groups. One person told me about a lunchtime study group she started at her workplace using the book.

Study Guide Coming Soon

To help those who want to use the book for group studies, I am currently writing a Group Study Guide resource to be a companion to the book, and I’m doing it by teaching the youth group at our church, White Fields Community Church. I’ve had some great help in creating the content from some of the excellent leaders at White Fields.

When the guide comes out, each session will include a group activity, a synopsis, and several study questions which correspond to the content of each chapter. Additionally, we are planning to create a series of videos which can be watched along with the study guide, for groups to use.

That study guide should be coming out in early 2023.

New book in the works

Additionally, I am working on another book called, So That You May Believe, which will be based on the evidence given in the Gospel of John about who Jesus is, and why you should believe in him.

Since my first book was The God I Won’t Believe In, hopefully this next book will be a good follow-up or companion, showing people the evidence for who Jesus is and why he came, So That You May Believe.

I hope to be able to release that book by the end of 2023.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!