Your circumstances may be bad, but your God is still good. He is near, his promises are still true, his love still unconditional, his grace still amazing, his timing still perfect. You may not like the what of what’s going on, but you can still praise God for the who of who he is.
Craig Groeschel, Winning the War in Your Mind, Page 183
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another #shorts post.
The Bible is full of knowledge on how to control our own mind and thoughts. It’s a critical topic to understand and master because our mind is always under attack by the devil. Besides that, we also hold ourselves back too by thinking negative thoughts.
No one has a perfect life. Everyone on earth has their own struggles, failures, problems, and tragedies. When bad things happen in life, it’s a natural human tendency to look at the negative. To focus on the bad, the pain of the tragic loss, or other things like that. But focusing on the negative doesn’t help us get past that difficult time, it only makes things harder for us. Besides that, focusing on the negative isn’t how God wants us to think. On that note the Bible gives us many examples of people who went through terrible circumstances, but praised God throughout and came out alright in the end because of that.
These Biblical characters chose to reframe their problems. They chose to trust in the LORD and see His power at work rather than focus on the negative. And many of their circumstances were … extremely negative. Prison, slavery, exile, and more. These Biblical characters trusted in the LORD through all their problems without giving in to the negative thoughts that surely must have been in their head.
These are examples of reframing our problems.
Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel explains reframing and how important it is for taking control of our thought life. So today we’ll look at Groeschel’s Reframe Principle, and see what it says in Winning the War in Your Mind.
The Reframe Principle
In Winning the War in Your Mind, Craig Groeschel explains four principles to live by to take control of our thoughts and live a better life. The third principle is the Reframe Principle, which is all about looking at our life and the things that happen in a more positive way. It’s about choosing to see how God is/was/could be at work in our life, no matter how bad circumstances appear at first glance.
When we make a habit of looking for God at work in our lives, we’ll see Him. And when we see how He was always working for our good the entire time in a situation (Romans 8:28), we’ll look at it differently. And we’ll praise God too.
The Reframe Principle is possibly the most important of the four principles in the book. The skill of reframing things to look at them differently and see how God is at work is so crucial for having the hopeful optimism we need to follow God through good times and the bad. Without this mental habit, we can burn out following God because we don’t understand why He puts us through so much pain during the bad times.
Nothing in the Bible guarantees a life free of all trouble and pain here on this fallen world. As long as we inhabit these flesh bodies on earth we will suffer and have problems. But God is good, and working for our ultimate good all the time. If we look at things with that mindset, it changes the meaning of our struggles.
There are Christians with a wrong understanding of things. They think that when they suffer tragedy, illness, hardship, and so on that God is mad at them. But that idea isn’t Biblical. A read through the New Testament tells us God may put us through hard times for many different reasons. Hard times and tragedies are not a sign of God’s anger.
With this in mind, we can praise God all the time, in good times and bad, holding on to the Faith and Romans 8:28 knowing that God will work out our situation for our good. But what He sees as best for us with His omniscient perspective may be different from what we want or see as best for us. That’s just something we’ve got to accept in life. And the Reframe Principle helps us do that.
Praise the Who, not the What
For an example of the Reframe Principle in action, Craig Groeschel talks about Paul and how he was often imprisoned for preaching the Gospel. Groeschel says when Paul was imprisoned in Rome, he was grateful for the chance to Evangelize the whole royal guard and spread the message that way. Paul gave thanks to God for this unexpected opportunity to preach in an unexpected way. Paul chose to see God at work in the situation, and gave thanks. He did not choose to focus on the obvious negative—being in prison—and this changed everything. His letter to the Philippians was written while he was imprisoned in Rome. Imagine what that letter would have been like if Paul was only focused on the negatives and his hardship?? This is one example of reframing.
But Rome wasn’t the only place Paul was in jail. He was also arrested in Philippi with Silas. “Paul was often imprisoned for preaching Jesus. we read about one of those times in Acts 16. Interestingly, this time Paul was in jail in Philippi.” (Craig Groeschel, Winning the War in Your Mind, Page 181). It’s in this scenario that Groeschel explains the fundamentals of the Reframe Principle.
Paul and Silas in prison praised God for Who He is, not what was going on. Read that again, because that’s what it’s all about right there. We praise God for Who He is, not what is going on in our life. Though we may suffer painful and unexpected situations, God is still good throughout all those situations. Our circumstances can be bad, for sure, but God is always good even when our circumstances aren’t. His Promises are still True, His Grace is still available to us. We need to take a bigger view and see how God is/was/could be at work in a tragedy or defeat.
First, they were praising God for the who, not the what. They were bloody and bound up in prison. If you had asked them, “What are you praising God for?” I don’t think there was any what that they could point to. Nothing good was happening, but their God was still good. They weren’t praising God for the what. They were praising him for the who. You can do that too.
Your circumstances may be bad, but your God is still good. He is near, his promises are still true, his love still unconditional, his grace still amazing, his timing still perfect. You may not like the what of what’s going on, but you can still praise God for the who of who he is.
Craig Groeschel, Winning the War in Your Mind, Page 183
In the case of Paul and Silas, of course this was the event where God burst the doors of the prison open and threw off all the prisoners’ chains. It was a miracle, and on top of that Paul and Silas had the chance to Evangelize the jailer. The jailer and his entire household were Saved and Baptized as a result. The bonus icing on the cake to a real miracle of God.
And you know what?? Paul and Silas needed to be in jail so that miracle could happen. No jail, no miracle. Their pain was crucial to their victory through the LORD. And so it is with us too.
We don’t have a choice about what happens to us in this life. But we do have a choice about how we react and how we choose to view what happens. We can focus on the negative, and on how much pain we’re in. Too much of this mindset and we take on a victim mentality, thinking that nothing but bad things ever happen to us. Then we live a life focused only on the bad things that happen. This doesn’t honor God.
Life is hard, but life is good too. There is both good and bad for us. This is the case for everyone, but for those who follow God there’s an important difference. We know that, in good or bad, God is always working out everything for the ultimate good of those who love Him. So with that in mind let’s reframe our difficulties, and look at our life from the viewpoint of trying to find God at work.
(28) We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (CEB)
That’s it for #shorts Part 42.
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