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      Foreword

      It has been said, “It’s not what happens to you but how you respond to what happens to you that really matters.” Your response to the circumstances and challenges of life are indicators of your spiritual and social maturity. In his book, Handling Your Issues: A Guide to Victorious Living, Dr. Calvin McFadden offers practical, portable, and pastoral advise that can help you approach life, not as a victim, but as a victor. Dr. McFadden skillfully escorts you on a journey towards personal triumph, despite how foreboding and fearful the path of life may sometimes seem. Using life experience examples of biblical personalities, ranging from an unknown man with a withered hand, the incredible story of the providential hand of God in the life of Joseph, to the faith exploits of David and Moses, Dr. McFadden shows you how to avoid falling into the pothole of an attitude of “victimization.”

      The principles laid out in this book will help you say, along with the apostle Paul, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV). Read what Dr. McFadden has to say, and you will be on the road toward Handling Your Issues!

      Dr. Maurice Watson, Senior Pastor

      Metropolitan Baptist Church, Washington, DC

      To my wife and children...

      — CHAPTER ONE —

      How to Handle a Withered Condition

      Luke 6:6-11

      Best-selling author, Stephen Covey of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, has built a publishing and consulting empire teaching people how to become masters of their own destinies. He specializes in helping people strive despite tough conditions.

      In his most famous book, Covey writes, “Too many people make the mistake of being a product of their conditions instead of being a product of their decisions. A person’s decisions always last longer than their conditions.” This is a very powerful statement because it suggests that even if conditions are beyond our control, we don’t have to allow them to control us. When conditions are unmanageable in our lives, we can, through our decisions, still manage our lives.

      This is important for you to understand. You are able to rise above adverse conditions because you’ve done it before. You come from good stock and you have such a rich heritage of fore parents who learned how to survive and thrive through the worst of times. And whenever you are faced with contrary circumstances and conditions, you have to remind yourself of that fact and encourage yourself by saying, “If God brought me to it, God can get me through it.”

      In a lecture to young pastors, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, a noted pastor and theologian, stressed the importance of the difference between slavery and bondage. He stated,

      The biggest difference between slavery and bondage is this: When our fore parents were brought from Africa to the Americas, their captors physically forced them into slavery. But while they were physically forced into slavery, they were not mentally and spiritually forced into bondage because, although their flesh was in shackles and chains, their minds were free. In the midst of being whipped and beaten and shackled, in their minds, they still sang songs like, “Swing low, sweet chariot, commin’ for to carry me home.”

      There is a difference between being a slave and being in bondage. The problem we often see is that even though people are no longer enslaved—far too many are still in bondage. There are no longer shackles and chains on their flesh, but their minds are still not free. Whenever people have the inability to mentally rise above their circumstances, as a consequence, they remain in bondage. Every human being, especially a child of God, has the ability and capability of rising above his or her condition and to be free in mind, body, and spirit.

      A familiar passage of Scripture comes to mind on the subject of overcoming conditions and circumstances. In the gospel of Luke (v. 6:6), there is a young man who has been confronted with a condition that has caused him to have a withered hand. In essence, there was a part of his body that was dead and not functioning properly. It is important to note, if his hand was withered, it was not a congenital problem, but something had happened to the hand. He wasn’t born that way, but in the process of life, something happened that caused the withering. Perhaps the man’s hand was crushed or an artery was blocked. Whatever it was, the blood flow from the heart to the hand had been interrupted.

      Whenever things are not flowing like they used to flow, whenever things have been cut off, whenever things start dying, there’s always an interruption. But the interruption doesn’t have to result in consummation. The man in the passage was able to flourish, even when things had stopped flowing. He was able to thrive in the midst of a circumstance that was beyond his control. Because he lived in antiquity and the practice of medicine was not like it is today, this man could not cure his condition, but he was able to cope with what he couldn’t cure. Sometimes, the Lord will allow us to experience circumstances in our lives we can’t cure or change. However, if God allows us to cope with what we can’t cure, we’re still blessed!

      You see, God doesn’t have to solve every problem in your life. If the problem in your life is not prohibiting you from being productive, it’s reason enough to give God praise. Perhaps you have resolved to reserve your praise owed to God because you’re mad He hasn’t yet fixed your issue. Be reminded, however, that God doesn’t have to fix your issue. If God fixes you to deal with the issue, then you’re still blessed. Even if He doesn’t fix the flow, you are still able to flourish, in spite of the failure. If God doesn’t deal with your withered condition, yet you learn to be productive, and you still give God praise, you will be able to rise above any condition.

      If you woke up this morning and had the unmitigated gall to say, “This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it,” then God can raise you up, even in the midst of whatever you’re going through.

      From the Luke passage, you discover a number of ways this man was able to handle his withered condition. There are lessons you can learn from this witness of antiquity. First, you cannot allow your withered condition to affect your want for the Word. In the midst of this man’s condition, he discovered what he really needed most of all was a word from the Lord. When things start withering in your life, when things start drying up, and when the flow is interrupted in your life, it is not the time to stay away from the Lord. It’s not the time to stop reading your Bible. And it’s not the time for you to disconnect from your local church. When things stop flowing, that’s the time you need to bust the doors wide open! It’s the time you need to hunger for the Word of God.

      The Bible says when Jesus entered into the synagogue to teach, there was a man already there. He was withered, but his withered condition didn’t stop him from wanting

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