Attitude Check

It is often our first reaction when trials hit to worry... Or at least mine! I try to think of everything I can do to keep things in order. Every safeguard I can set up to ensure that my walls stand. The truth is that God HAS to be my foundation of strength. I have nothing without Him. 

I often doubt Him and His ability to heal, redeem, or restore. I question His character and ask why He would allow something bad to happen to me when I am trying so hard to follow Him. I begin feeling sorry for myself and the issues I have to endure.

What's funny is that I get so focused on myself that I forget about Him. I forget that He is sovereign, faithful, good, and glorious. I forget that he endured the cross so that His grace and glory could be revealed to mankind. I forget that as I endure, I am learning to suffer as He did and should take joy in knowing His glory is on the way. Just like Christ's resurrection from the dead, God WILL resurrect my current trial into something more glorious than I could ever fathom. If I begin to operate in a mindset of joy and expectancy as opposed to worry and doubt, my eyes will be opened to His grace and power being revealed. It may not be as timely as I would prefer, but he is strengthening my faith and purifying my attitude. He is showing me how to trust Him deeper and love Him better... So that my heart will be attuned to His voice when He speaks, "My blessing and grace are coming, my Spirit is resting upon you, my life is being glorified through you, I am constant and will not fail you." 

Thank you, God, for your incredible grace and awesome glory! Thank you for letting me be a recipient of both! Thank you for showing me that while I thought I was under great trial, I am actually being held in your great favor and grace! 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:3-25 ESV)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 Peter 4:12-19 ESV)