Be happy as you share Christ’s sufferings. Then you will also be full of joy when he appears again in his glory.
1 Peter 4:13
The next time you have a problem in your life, don’t look at the problem itself but look at God. When trouble hits, your gut instinct is to react to the person inflicting it or to the circumstances surrounding it, but the best thing you can do is to remove yourself from the situation and react to God and what his Word says about it.
The purpose of problems in your life is to see if you are going to look away from God and to the people and things around you. The right answer is always doing what God wants instead of what your sinful nature wants. You might want to fight, you might want to fear, or you might just want to worry, but your spirit has to overrule your sinful nature and decide to look to God and his Word for direction instead of looking to your emotions. Every time a problem pops up, look up—don’t look in or down or over, just up. Every time you successfully look up, you get closer and closer to the likeness of Christ, and the more you do, the more you will be able to endure all things and to overcome anything that might set itself up against you.
When you truly trust that God’s Word will give you all you need in times of trouble and you fearlessly do whatever God commands, then you will be out of the reach of problems that can damage your life. Troubles might come your way, but they will never again shake you or break you—only make you stronger.