The Question That Can Lead To Breakthroughs

What do you do when you find yourself in circumstances that you don’t like one bit, that you struggle to accept? (Or wonder if you should accept or try to change it?)

Somehow I stumbled upon an approach that has led to a breakthrough in my attitude and experience.

A question that totally shifts the perspective.

The question: What good might come from this (situation, experience, circumstance)?

It is a faith question, based on the biblical promise that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV).

If you love God, are following him as best you can, you are called according to his purpose, and you can claim this promise.

So then, you can trust that God is working all things together for good somehow.

And if that’s true, then you can also ask the question, “What good might come from this?” and start to imagine answers.

When you do that, what happens? You get out of fear mode (or resentment, or anger, or resignation, or whatever it is you feel about the situation you don’t like that you can’t change), and curiosity takes over. You begin to imagine possible ways this might actually turn out for good.

How many times have you heard about people with cancer, for instance, who say that though they never would have chosen it, the cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them because of how it changed them for the better?

That’s not to say that the thing itself, such as a degenerative disease, is at all good. It’s just holding onto the trust that God can bring something good out of it.

Of course, you don’t know how it will turn out for good. But imagining how it might, changes everything.

And if you add to it prayer, and keeping a gifts journal to notice the good things that are still coming into your life (a practice that always pulls me out of the pit of depression), you may see a breakthrough in your experience of that situation.

Another thing a “gifts journal” does for me is to remind me how creative God is. I find he is always surprising me with how he works things out. This too bolsters my faith. How he actually works good from these circumstances will probably turn out to be something I’m not even imagining yet, or some combination of what I envision (or glimpse now) and his own surprising creativity.

One thing is sure, though: it will cause me to thank and praise him, and will likely delight if not astonish me. And it will make the trial seem quite worthwhile.

At the very least, it leads me to more peace, heaps of hope, and even the joy of anticipation (“how will he bless me through this?”).

And that, dear friend, has led to a total breakthrough in how I’m experiencing my current circumstances, that I once thought unbearable. I hope it will for you, too,.