Do you find yourself wanting to give up when you go through situations that make you doubt God or disbelieve God really loves and cares for you?
Is it possible to endure troubles in life that make you desire to give up and change them to successful events? Can you experience joy in the process?
The answer is “YES”. You can learn to endure hard things without complaining. Additionally, you can be full of joy in the process.
“Consider” is a key word. This is a mathematical, accounting term. It is the determination you make for where you write down the situation in your record book. In the past you’ve thought about hard things as subtractions from your life. You’ve put them as negatives. What would happen if you changed the accounting and considered them additions to your life and count them as positives? This would reverse the faith-endangering situation from being negative to being positive.
Before you can change a scenario from negative to positive, you must have a good reason. You must validate the necessity to make the change. There must be a “knowing” that occurs. Validity for the change occurs when you understand the hard things you’re experiencing are making you mature and complete. Knowing this situation is being used to strengthen and help you grow in your relationship with God is the only valid reason your record book can count this hard thing as positive instead of negative.
When you see the grace of God helping you endure the faith-trying thing without complaining, you experience joy in the process. Then, you are growing in patience and enjoying the process.
Try it the next time something “bad” happens in your life. Instead of focusing on the situation, focus on the benefit it is for you to experience this because when you get to the end, you have much more ability to endure hard things than when you started. This creates joy as you see God’s favor resting on you and helping you.
For further help and encouragement, meditate on this.
James 1:2-4 (NASB) Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect results, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Written By: Anne Gurley
