what do you do with distress?

Isn’t it strange how every situation is an opportunity to become closer with God? Maybe it’s strange because it’s perfect. His work still continues but  the verses below have become part of a prayer for the rest of 2008. I want to let every situation finish it’s work and get out of nothing prematurely. People say that change is the hardest thing to get into, the hardest thing to do, yet I find myself begging for change this day.

Praise God for trouble of every kind including distress.

Now I’m glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. And now, isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you’ve come out of this with purity of heart. And that is what I was hoping for in the first place when I wrote the letter.

Jump