No Pain, No gain!

This morning I received the sad news that a friend's sister was buried yesterday after having taken her life. What a tragedy. Life is difficult for many people. This past week I've heard of friends losing their parents, friends relapsing on drugs, marriages breaking up, pastors resigning their churches to find other careers and so on. The myriad of trials facing our culture today can be overwhelming. Though there are many problems we all have to face, the problems are not the problem. It's the pain associated with the problem. Too often, when faced with pain people want to flee from it, numb it, or self-medicate so that they don't have to feel it. We should never run from pain in life. The old adage is "No Pain, No Gain!"

Someone once said to me, "Problems are the price of progress. So that is why I've decided to look at every problem as an opportunity for growth... to grow spiritually strong we need to say, "don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me." What a philosophy! Bring me problems, they strengthen me. It gives Jesus a great opportunity to come and make himself strong in my weakness. Problems should be viewed as opportunities to grow stronger in faith.

The big question isn't whether we have problems and that some of them are extremely difficult and all of them add to the complications of living. The big issues is our attitude toward the problems we face. How you think and view a problem is more important than the problem itself. Romans 12:2 calls to "renew our minds" with the positive truth of God's word. Every problem we face is an opportunity of personal growth and a testimony that we are making serious progress in fulfilling God's purpose for our lives. Problems bring pain. Pressing through our pain thresholds enables us to become stronger just like weight-lifting. But, it's important to note, our attitudes toward the problems we face in life are more important than the problem itself. Is there any problem too big for God to handle? If not, then with God's help we can handle any problem coming our way today.