This week we have established that we all “frame” our circumstances. This “framing” is what we think about things that happen to us, which eventually affects how we respond to all of life. The goal of the Christian life is to learn to “frame” our events with Faith rather than Fear or Worry.
Many of us are trying to put broken frames or pieces of frame around our events because we don’t understand how anything bad can be framed as anything good.
Is your frame broken today? Are you looking at your life circumstance through pieces that you are trying to hold together with the glue of human understanding? If so, today is the day to STOP, think about what Scripture says about troubles, and reflect on a bigger picture.
Today’s Truth: James 1:2
“My brothers and sisters, you will face all kinds of trouble. When you do, think of it as pure joy. Your faith will be put to the test. You know that when that happens it will produce in you the strenght to continue. The strength to keep going must be allowed to finish its work. THey you will be all you should be. You will have everything you need.” NIrV
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at your from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”
- When we go through trials, tests, and trouble…it is hard.
- When things are hard we try to figure out how to make them not so hard.
- When figuring things out we turn to our human understanding, and often see the hardships as only negative.
- In order to re-frame our circumstances we need to see the promise of what hard things do in us.
- Remember: Things happen to us, so something can happen in us.
- Now, with truth in hand, the frame doesn’t need to be glued together, but we can boldly put a sparkle frame around an ugly circumstance.
- We can sparkle, praise, and have hope, because Jesus promised us that in troubles we will become more mature, complete, and lacking nothing that we need.
Let’s go pull out a sparkle frame of praise and get to framing our lives events with Truth!
Today’s Prayer
Father, I am a quite skilled at doing things according to my own understanding. Now, I need to learn to turn and revert my thoughts to how you do things. When I do this, my events, even hard ones, become a joy as I begin to frame life with the HOPE that you are working in me. Take now my broken pieces and frame my life with that HOPE.
Your message is part of a picture God is painting for me using different people. Thank you. He waited for me to LISTEN to what He kept saying rather than incessantly talking about what wasn’t going my way. I lost joy, perspective, that sparkle frame. Switching frames highlights those bits of beauty in my circumstances. He brought to mind another picture. His hands on my shoulders, leaning in to whisper, “How will you respond to this, I’m right here. I have given you the power to choose. Pull out that sparkle frame, choose joy.”