FIVE Essential Elements
Element 4: Assessing Your Resources
When life throws us a curve ball that hits us square in the jaw, the pain can be overwhelming and even give us vertigo. No longer do we walk swiftly and with confidence through our life, but rather we brace ourselves and move ever so lightly, fearful of each new step that might bring more pain and uncertainty.
But by systematically moving through the Five Essential Elements of turning adversity into the abundant life, we incrementally regain our balance and confident walk. After we understand the need for recalibrating our lives, realize that our life is not our own, and then learn maintaining a riveted focus on Christ is the only technique for managing a productive attitude in the face of calamity, we then need to begin assessing our resources.
We are shipwrecked on a profoundly uncomfortable island. We need to build a boat to get back to life.
A boat. It must float. It must carry our family. We don’t know for how long. But we know that we need to get off this forsaken island. Our first step needs to be to look around and see what resources might be available to build the boat. More than likely, our eyes have seen those resources before, but we never cognitively saw them as resources. Rather, they were simply pieces of wood, long vines, and rusty old nails.
But now with our recalibrated eyes we...
- see a network of possible job referrals, assets that can be sold for immediate cash, and lifestyle expenses that we can live without.
- need to sit down and make a list of our talents, interests, educational experience and skills.
- think through what personal characteristics we have that might be particularly beneficial to a potential employer, or maybe a new business venture that we can begin.
- need to make an exhaustive list of who we think might represent a job opportunity or referral.
Our resources include not only our personal and professional network, but our financial assets such as a 401k, even furniture, jewelry and other possessions that could be sold for cash. We need to make a thorough accounting of every personal asset we can think of and simply have that inventory of resources available. Then, we begin building our boat. Job prospects. Income opportunities. Support and encouragement groups.
People have far more resources available to them then they realize. It is only when we are faced with a life trauma that we are forced to step back and appreciate what God has given us. It is more than we ever imagined. And it will be enough to build our boat.