Proverbs 17:3

A crucible refines silver and a furnace  gold, but the LORD refines hearts.

Perhaps our trials and sufferings are just the means to purify our hearts. Burn off all that does not lead to God. Melt away anything that is a distraction to our thoughts of God and on what is good and right.

What if we looked at every trial of life big or small as God’s loving action to bring us closer to Himself? What would that do to our thinking? To our mindset?

Accept and embrace what is instead of fighting and trying to simply alleviate pain. It’s been said that we will make little effort to attain pleasure, but we will do almost anything to avoid pain. Tho it does  seem that we go to great lengths to gain pleasure at times, I wonder how often the pleasure-seeking is actually just a means to avoid pain?

What if we accepted everything that came our way as something to learn from and make us more like Him? As opposed to just stewing about how much we don’t like it…

Luke 4:10-12

“For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect and guard you and they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.'” Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You shall not test the LORD your God.'”

The most effective temptations will have a good portion of truth attached to them. Here, Satan quotes from Psalm 91.

Remember to always look at the big picture, God’s whole story, all of Scripture, not just isolated bits and pieces.

How deep is the mind and mystery of God. How foolish we can be at times to think one verse of the Bible can describe Him or what He is up to. One verse, because it is from God, has great power, can cause Satan to flee, and can give immense comfort, but it must always point to the ineffable greatness of God and that He may be up to a  million things at any given moment that we cannot know or comprehend.