“What looked like a setback was really a setup for God to do something greater in Paul’s life.” – Excerpt from Joel Osteen’s book You Can. You Will. (c) 2014
Do you ever feel like you are taking one step forward and two steps backward? You get the bills all caught up and then the car breaks down. You overcome a bad cold to then get the flu. You lose 5 pounds and then something stressful occurs and you snack away your sorrow! These are all setbacks. Some of them are in our control; some are not.
But no matter what – God is still in control – whether we are forging along and making great strides OR taking steps that make you feel like you have a setback.
Sometimes God uses our setbacks to wake us up and cause us to look to Him; to fall flat on our backs so we are looking up to the heavens; to surrender control and look to Him for strength. Don’t look at what we refer to as SETBACKS in a negative way but rather look at them as SETUPS for God to do something great in our lives.
In Romans 8:28, Pauls says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Everything is used by God for good for those who love Him. He has given us free will to make choices. If we choose wrong, he doesn’t “control” that choice. We suffer consequences from wrong choices. However, God will work something good out of those bad choices so that He will be glorified in some way.
So the next time you have an urge to whine about the SETBACKS, make yourself stop, smile and think about how God is using those as SETUPS for greater things! You might as well smile…………He is! 
