Tied On – The Cowboy’s DevotionalSample

HAPPY TRIALS

We’ve all heard the great cowboy song “Happy Trails,” right? Well, after a long day of working cattle and some not-so-happy events, I renamed this song “Happy Trials.” If you’ve ever worked with cattle, you know it can be very trying. In just one day I was kicked by a heifer and knocked to the ground, had fallen off the platform of the cattle tub, and knocked the crap out of my elbow on the working chute. To top it off, I had this one cowboy yelling at me all day, ‘cause for some reason he thought he was in charge. I wanted to break his nose (in Jesus name of course)! Needless to say, I wasn’t a very happy person that day and it was one day I wished I never had to face.

Trials are inevitable. The world’s definition of happiness is the absence of trials, heartache, persecution, pain, death, and loss. And because of all of these trials, many people aren’t happy! Depression diagnoses are at the highest they’ve ever been. There’s suicide, divorce, and abandonment, all of which are high because people don’t know how to deal with the trials of life.

In today’s verse, the word “blessed” literally means happy, but not in the sense that the world views happiness. The Lord’s definition of “blessed” or “happiness” is not the absence of trials, but the victory over them.

If by the Lord’s strength we will endure and choose to face our trials with Him, we will overcome! We can’t get rid of trials, but we can find victory over them.

Philippians 4:13 tells us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

CHEW ON THIS
Have you allowed your trials to steal your happiness? Are you living for the world’s definition of happiness or God’s?

PRAYER
Lord, help me find victory over my trials through you. Heal my pain and comfort me through the trials of life so that I can overcome! It’s in your holy name I pray, Amen.