Sometimes life doesn’t follow our expectations. How we see things going doesn’t always happen. In fact it often doesn’t. Painful times happen for all of us. So this leads me to a question. When your in a painful circumstance, what do you see? Do you see only the pain? Do you put a positive spin on it? What’s the difference between a spin and reality? A spin is us telling ourselves and others what we want it to be. A spin is not the truth. So what is the truth? The apostle Paul wanted to go to Rome most of his life as a missionary. His reasoning was that Rome was the center of everything then and if he could take the gospel of Christ there, then it would reach the known world. Well, he did eventually end up in Rome, but as a prisoner. This was not what he expected! Now he could have got down in the dumps, or he could have put a spin on the situation. What he did instead was reframe the situation in his mind by looking for God in it. In reality, while he was in prison, the believers in Rome saw his joy in suffering and were encouraged by it. They began preaching the gospel with boldness! Also, Paul had a Roman guard chained to him who couldn’t get away so he could witness to him and they changed guards every few hours so then he could witness to them too! Word got around and the gospel began to spread like wildfire! Paul faced certain death but instead of being focused on his emotions of fear and dread and disappointment that he came to Rome as a prisoner instead of as a missionary preaching out in public, he reframed the situation in his mind and realized that God was working in even more amazing ways than he could ever have imagined! Are you in pain or going through a hard time? How can you see God working? If you look you will see! He’s with you and doing more anazing things than you can imagine!
Thank you Father for your goodness. Help us to see it even in our worst of days!
Have a blessed day friends!
Speaking truth in kindness 