Relooking at your Problems

We all have problems in our lives. It can be a difficult person or a difficult situation but we all have them. We do not get excited about the problems we face and we even try to avoid problems at all cost.

So how can we change our perspective on problems? We need to have the mindset that all of our problems are a part of His plan even though it does not make sense to us. Part of His plan is to make us more like Jesus Christ and He will allow things into our lives to bring us to the point that we are changed to be more like Christ. If you play an instrument or a sport you know that there are hours and hours of practice preparing you for the one moment you might play. If you are not a starter you prepare just as much as everyone else because if someone gets hurt you may have to go into the game.

In our life we know that "No Pain equals No Gain" If we want to lose weight, get stronger or faster we have to push ourselves and our muscles to a breaking point. But when it comes to our Christian life why do we run away from anything that is difficult? Why do we not allow God, who loves us more than we love ourselves, push us in some areas so we can grow spiritually?

One of the lies we face in our culture is this power of positive thinking.Positive thinking is a very simple concept that everyone can understand. Is the adoption of mental attitudes that makes anyone focus on certain thoughts and images that will help you achieve success, happiness and health. Yes as Christians we should have a new mindset (Romans 12:2) but that does not mean we focus on our goals, our health our dreams. Ephesians 6:6 calls us slaves of Christ. As Christians our focus should be on Christ and what His goals, His dreams and His desires are for our lives and not our own. Although there are some truths in the Power of Positive thinking we need to be careful that we do not take the focus off of God and onto ourselves. We also have to make sure we do not think it is by our own power that we live this life.

Luke 22:42-43 42"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 43An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

That is a very encouraging passage because it goes against this mindset that everything should be great all the time in your life if you are following Christ. Everything is not great all the time and there are some real challenges in life that we have to walk through. That we need to think our negative circumstances away is just not Biblical. We have to rebuke lies about God in our difficult circumstances but not the circumstances themselves.

2 Corinthians 10:4-6 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

The negative thoughts we demolish are the ones that come against the truth about God when we are walking through such a difficult time. The thoughts that He does not love us, or He does not care or that He is not in control. Those are the negative thoughts that have to be demolished. Losing a loved one in a car crash, or being diagnosed with a disease are still negative things we have to walk through. The issue I have is that in the church we want to explain away the pain of people instead of walking into their lives and walking through their pain with them. We cover it up by saying you just need to pray more or trust God more.

We will never face anything like Jesus faced but we can know that God allows things like pain in our lives so that we can grow and others can be ministered to. Just like a coach who pushes you harder so you will be ready for the game, God allows things to get us ready for His will.

1) God uses pain for our gain

1 Samuel 17:33-35 Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."
34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

Would David have been ready for Goliath if he never fought the Lion or the Bear?

If I were a Shepherd I would have let that lion have that sheep and been happy it did not come after me. Not David, he went after the lion, popped him on the head and took the sheep. If the lion turned on him he grabbed it by the hair. Did you miss that? HE GRABBED IT BY THE HAIR. You have to be pretty bold, stupid, or just not care anymore to do that. No wonder he was not scared of Goliath. I would not have been scared either if I was taking on Lions and Bears.

All of Davids things he did behind the scenes when no one was watching paid off in the light. He was faithful when no one was cheering his name, when no one was seeing him work hard and in the end he was ready for the biggest challenge he had to date.

How about you? Are you serving faithfully even when no one sees or it seems like no one is looking? If you have been on a team you always see those couple of team mates that only jog fast when the coach is looking, but as soon as the coach stops looking they slack off again. David did not slack off when no one is looking. He took the difficult circumstances as being from God.

Psalm 71:19-21Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God,
you who have done great things.
Who, O God, is like you?
20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.
21 You will increase my honor
and comfort me once again.

Did you see verse 20? Read it again. David saw difficult things that even caused bitterness as being from God. Do you believe God loves you? If so can you look at your circumstances as Him getting you ready for something bigger than you can imagine?

Acts 16:22-25 22The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

They were beaten and thrown in prison yet they were still praising God? What would you have done if you were beaten and thrown in prison? Would you be asking God why? I would have been. But they did not allow circumstances to change their view of God but focused on truth and what they knew about God and not how they felt at the time. We do not have God's view of how everything is coming together. (Isaiah 55:8) Worship is praising God even when life is not going the way we think it should be.

“We need to stop asking God to get us out of our circumstances and start asking Him what He wants us to learn in our circumstances” Mark Batterson

2) God uses pain for someone else’s gain.

Have you ever been in a difficult situation and has someone who had no clue trying to give you advice? Makes you want to smack them around a little. (In the name of Jesus of course) If you are walking through a difficult time in your life you want to talk to those who have traveled a similar path. You want to know what they did, how they go through each day and how they found comfort. God will allow you to walk through things because He is going to use you to help others through the pain of what they are experiencing. He will allow the pain you have to help lead them to Him. This is what the Cross of Christ demonstrated. God allowed Jesus to walk through pain so that we could gain. We gained a right relationship with God through Christ because of what Jesus did. God will also allow others to experience victory as He uses you in their life because of what you walked through.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Philippians 1:27-30 27Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel 28without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. 29For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, 30since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

If you are walking through trials and problems in your life think about what God is getting you ready to do, not how hard your situation is. We will have problems in this life but we know the one who has already overcome all of them. This is not about you trying harder but about putting your trust in the one that has overcome. I am not promising you that everything will come out better for you because the people in Hebrews 11 did not receive what they hoped for but I am saying that God has a plan and you can trust Him.

Hebrews 11:36-40 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned[f]; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.


John 16:33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

1 John 4: 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Notice this is not about you having the power in and of yourself to do anything. This is about the power of God living inside of you, the one who has already overcome the world. We will look forward to the day when we will be with God for eternity but until that time we must look at the situations we are in as God allowing things in our lives for the benefit of us, the benefit of others, and most importantly, for His Glory.