Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. -Philippians 1:12
I think every day that we wake up, we each have a very important decision, and this decision may surprise you. It is more important than my past, my education or degrees, the size of my bank account, my success or failure, my fame or pain, what others think about me, or say about me, my circumstances or my position. The most important decision I have to make is, what kind of perspective about life will I choose to have today? What will be my attitude about my day? The attitude I choose will either empower me or cripple me. It will determine my progress or my lack of progress. It will determine whether my day is filled with peace and joy or sorrow and consternation.
The Apostle Paul wrote the Philippians from a prison cell in Rome and yet he stated that his circumstances have turned out for the greater furtherance of the gospel. What a perspective! What an attitude! Instead of having a pity party for himself, he dared to see life differently in spite of being confined to a prison in Rome. I think anyone in the place of Paul would have been tempted to lament about one's circumstances and tell God he or she could serve God better if he/she would be freed from the prison.
When my attitude is right, there is no barrier too high, no valley too deep, and no challenge too great. When the twelve spies came back to report on the land of Canaan, the report was a divided report. The majority said there are giants in the land and they are too great to overcome. However, Joshua and Caleb came back declaring that the Israelites could take the land because God had promised to give them the land. What was the difference? Clearly, it was attitude. They refused to let their giants become bigger than their God.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in her poem, The Winds of Fate, puts it in beautiful poetic language:
One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tell us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through life;
Tis the set of the soul
That decides its goal
And not the calm or the strife.
Epictetus, who lived during the first century going into the second, once said, "It isn't your problems that are bothering you. It is the way you are looking at them." During this pandemic and unrest in our nation, when the spiritual and emotional battles are great, fear, anxiety, worry, anger, and even depression seem to be the giants in our land that desire to overwhelm us. But God promised us in I Corinthians 10:13 that He would not let any trial or temptation be such that it would overtake us. Be encouraged. Wake up each day asking God the Holy Spirit to help you set your sails on a course with a Biblical perspective. I promise you, it will make a difference!