DBNO

What's your favorite Rocky movie? Most people I asked say IV where he fights the Russian Drago. I just like them all because it's all about being Down But Not Out! They are all about getting knocked around but getting up the strength to fight again.

Like Abe Lincoln.  He was born in poverty,  lost 8 elections before becoming President, twice failed in business,  had a nervous breakdown, yet he led our nation through the greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis during the Civil War.  What if he had lost that election and quit, where would we be now?

But, the greatest example of being DBNO is how Jesus went to the cross before his death and resurrection. All accounts speak of his torture but nothing depicts it better than the scourging scenes from Passion of The Christ. If you haven't seen it check it out on YouTube. God could have chosen something different, with much less pain to show us the way to redemption, but he did not. What this tells me, is that without pain, there is no gain in life.

Listening to Joyce Meyer the other day who suffered from childhood abuse, she mentioned that someone gave her a book on healing to read when she was younger which she promptly threw away because it brought up too much pain. That's how we tend to react when something is too painful to face, we escape the process. But if we do, the pain never goes away, in fact it causes us to inflict pain on others.

Maybe God was showing us that to get to redemption from our sins, addictions and pain, we only need to look at what Jesus went through to take heart, dig in to fight, and get to that bell in the last round? Think of how those punches in Rocky would have hurt if they were real. Do you think Abe was in pain after all that loss and having to face a divided warring nation?

It's simple, no pain, no gain. If we want to bounce back from adversity,  we only have to look at the one who would not let pain hold him back from his purpose. In fact, if we have a purpose, we will fight through any pain to get where we need to go.

Fact, pain is weakness leaving the body. Don't hide, don't run, just keep punching, and though you may be down temporarily, you won't get knocked out if you find that purpose. Rocky's purpose, Adrianne of course. Abe's purpose, human rights,  Jesus purpose, change the world.

What's ours?