Probably there is not too many experiences that can be more devastating than being ambushed.

And you know what I'm talking about.

Family that seemed to be doing well and everything is going fine.

And all of a sudden, out of the blue, a spouse asked for divorce.

Wow.

A businessman who's been enjoying God's material blessings, financial blessings.

And all of a sudden, wham, one deal threatened all that he had worked for.

I'm talking about the person who had experienced victory, and within a

very short period of time, there is a public defeat. Those are the kind of ambushes that I'm

talking about, where you find a person on his face like Joshua crying out to God saying, why? Why is this happening?

But really the question is more than just why. It's because often the Lord graciously

points out things in our lives as to why, that we are not suffering unfairly or unjustly, but

there are basically the consequences of things we've done or have not done. But the question

is, am I willing to confront the reasons for failure? Am I willing to find the hidden facts inside of me?

Why do I say this?

Because often we want to cover it up instead of exposing it to God's sunshine.

We often try to hide it instead of allowing God to clean it up.

And we often deny it instead of admitting it. It's funny because I was reading this week

a story of denial and show you how ludicrous sometimes these things are and this man gets drunk on a

regular basis and he comes home drunk and he tries to come late so his wife doesn't see when he

came in and often when he gets drunk he gets into brawls and he gets hit in the face and so he comes

home one night who bruises all over his face and he creeps in the face. And so he comes home one night, who bruises all over his face, and he creeps in slowly.

...