Since we have entered a new decade, it would be ideal to live a peaceful and trouble-free life. But that would mean all the lawbreakers and problematic people would have to disappear. However, I have learned that it is the problematic and difficult people that God uses to change my perspective about who He is as well as who I am as a person.
As I learned how to deal with difficult people, I found out how God deals "patiently" with me. Problem people in my space forced me to turn to God in prayer. I admit, sometimes the prayers were vengeful as David's prayer in Psalm 109. I learned the best way to handle a problem person is to focus on what's going on with me "internally" that makes me react to that person's behavior, which I have no control over.
Could it be that I have a problem?
I became the student and allowed the Holy Spirit to be my Teacher. God, the Holy Spirit, aka Spirit of Truth, used the problem person as a "visual aid" in life's classroom to make sure I comprehended the lesson taught and learned the truth about myself.
My prayer: "Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life, O Lord, according to your laws. Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law. Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commands are true (Psalm 119:149-151).
The psalmist does not claim that God makes problem people disappear. He merely points out that while they are near, so is God. Big problems gain a different perspective when we remember the nearness of a bigger God. The one thing that's certain, no one or no-thing is bigger than my God.
Here are two (2) keys to gain a different perspective:
Learn to redirect your energy on what is most important what's most important.
Remind yourself of God's law and be strengthen by His powerful presence in your space. When He is in your space, problems and difficult people that maybe causing the problems appear much smaller, insignificant compared to your relationship with Christ, and even disappears altogether. In other words, even if they're there, don't see them. See only your Big God. He's magnified a thousand times over.
As you prepare for 2020, resolve to see the BIG God as your solution to what may appear a big problem knowing it is only a small matter or no matter at all compared to the nearness of your God Almighty.
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