From Pastor Steven Furtick ( This is Awesome )

Can we skip this scene?

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:16 AM PDT

There’s a reason we love movies about people overcoming adversity. A reason why we’ll sit through 100 minutes of depressing scenes for 2 minutes of payoff at the end.

It’s because those depressing scenes make the victory and the payoff at the end that much more meaningful. And possible. Without the adversity, there wouldn’t be much worth watching. Or worth cheering for when the adversity is conquered.

What’s interesting is that what we look for in movies we avoid at all costs in life. The life most of us would prefer is a movie no one would want to see. Including ourselves.

Here’s what I mean.

Have you ever found yourself facing a season of setback and challenge, thinking:
God, can we skip this scene?

If you have, you’re not alone.

Joseph would have said it while spending 13 years in slavery and prison.
The apostles would have said it when they were being persecuted for the gospel.
Even Jesus said it before the cross when He was in the garden of Gethsemane.

So it’s understandable to have this feeling. Who wants to go through hell? Who wants to go through adversity? It’s ok to watch on a screen. But who wants to go through it in their own lives?

Yet what we have to realize is that it’s these very moments that make the payoff we’re waiting for worth it. It’s these scenes that build character. That setup for the big breakthrough and climax.

It’s the scenes that we all want to skip that produce the endings we all want to experience.

It was Joseph’s time in slavery and prison that put him in a position to save his family and an entire nation.
It was the very persecution that the apostles would have wanted to skip that ended up being the catalyst for the rapid spread of the gospel.
It was the cross of Jesus that provided salvation for all who would believe.

Nothing of great worth comes at a low cost. The hardest scenes of your life are the necessary stepping stones to the greatest breakthroughs and victories of your life.

I know that doesn’t make them easy. I know you’d still like to skip them. But you can’t.

And it’s the scenes that you’d prefer to skip that God is using to orchestrate an ending you wouldn’t want to miss.