Present Troubles
Are you good at seeing your problems as temporary?
Verse of the Day
‘For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!’
Today’s Devotional
I realize that in the grand scheme of things, most of my problems are not what one might consider “trouble”. However, this life is a very messy and sometimes frustrating process to get from where I am now to where I’d like to be.
How many times in your life have you been really stressed or worried about a situation to the point that it took up too much of your mental space? Think about one of those situations from your past. If it is resolved now, do you see that it worked out exactly as it needed to?
This process, of seeing problems and temporary learning opportunities, is so easy to see in other people’s lives. Yet it is so difficult to retain that perspective for ourselves. Let me give you a specific example from my life. When one of my daughters was finishing her sophomore year of college, and needed to move off campus. She had known for months that she needed to find roommates and an apartment. Through this whole process, she was very stressed and frustrated by the slow progress. And in all honesty, my mommy-nature wanted to jump in and try to fix it. But I was able to remind her of the potential lessons: planning ahead, being responsible, asking important questions, continually making some kind of progress (no matter how small), praying about all decisions, constantly asking God for His guidance, and most importantly – that when things look impossible is when God does His best work. These are incredibly valuable lessons for a young adult. They are valuable lessons for ME. And, in God’s amazing faithfulness, He provided my daughter with a place to live with only one week left before she had to move out of her dorm.
How easy is it, though, to look at my current “troubles” through this same lens? Many of the details of my current situation are completely out of my hands. But do you know what I have noticed? The more I speak God’s truth over my situation, the easier it is for me to see the temporary nature of everything in front of me.
I believe that each of us has a choice every single day. We can choose to focus on our problems, or we can choose to focus on our God. If, in the middle of difficulties, we can focus on the sovereignty of God, and ask for the lessons He is trying to teach us, today’s verse tells us that this will produce GLORY! I can’t tell you with any certainty what this glory is, but if I were to guess, I would say that the glory that is produced in our lives through our troubles is knowledge in the faithfulness of God. We build trust. We grow in our relationship with the Almighty. We become the kind of followers who can be instruments of His love to this world.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Make a list of your current troubles.
What advice would you give someone else in these situations?
How can you remind yourself of the temporary nature of your current struggles?
What lessons might God be inviting you to learn?
What would “glory” look like for you in these troubles?
What truth do you need to speak over yourself today?