The Lord has made! I choose to rejoice and be glad in it!
Hello everyone, in "Jesus Calling" this month the theme seems to be trusting God through trials or hard circumstances...
Today's entry said to thank God for my problems... Whenever I get distracted with something hard, I should bring it to God with thanksgiving...
I don't know about you, but that is not an easy pill to swallow... I don't want to thank God for my problems... That just doesn't seem right. God loves me. He shouldn't want me to have problems, so why should I thank Him for them?... I don't truly mean it, if I thank Him for a problem... Cause I'm obviously not happy that I have the problem... Right?!
Well, after a little bit of family discussion, this is my new way of thinking... I am going to thank God for the opportunity(s) that the problem is bringing into my life. For instance, someone makes you mad/upset and talks down to you like you don't have feelings... I can thank God for the new opportunity to walk in love, the opportunity to be humble, and thank Him for being here for me because I cannot handle this on my own. Problems, trials, etc... they all bring us out of our comfort zone. Out of our little bubble of "self". In order to survive we need to trust in God and lean on Him more. This keeps us grounded. We need things like this so that we don't become like the men at the Tower of Babel(Genesis 11:1-9). They felt like they were as great as God because everything was going so well for them, they were united, no one could stop them... We don't want to be like that... Look where it got them!
Staying grounded and understanding that we couldn't do anything without God's help is a very important life lesson. Pride goes before a fall(Proverbs 16:18)...
So even-though I want to quit, or throw something back in someone's face, I'm not going to. God told us that the greatest (and really the only commandment) is to LOVE. I'm trying hard to love others, and to treat them the way I want to be treated. What are you doing? Are you looking at things from their perspective? Or yours? Is it all about me, me, me? Or am I willing to sacrifice my time and energy for someone else? I'm not just talking to you here, I am talking to myself too. I have a lot to learn and apply to my life, but I am going to continue to ask God for wisdom on how to grow in His LOVE. What are you going to do???
Blessings!
~ S*
