How to find God's Will When You're Experiencing a Problem, Going through a Trial, being tempted, or whatever you may be going through.
Whenever we have a problem we have to deal with, we need to ask ourselves, "how does the Lord want me to handle this?". We may have other questions too such as "why" it's happening, or what we should or shouldn't do about it.
To get your answer to those and other questions, you go to your bible to find out how God wants you to handle it. Most importantly though you pray and ask the Lord to guide you as you look through His Word to see how He wants you to respond to your current situation. Why? Because that's how the Lord speaks to us today. While He's perfectly capable of speaking to us with His voice or in other ways, He generally speaks to us through His Word, so when we need to find an answer, that's where we need to go to talk to Him. Otherwise the only answers you're libel to get are a nudging to go to His Word or silence.
I'm going to pretend that the problem is co workers harassing you at work. Another word for someone that's harassing us is persecute:
Persecute means:
To oppress or harass with ill-treatment,
To annoy persistently; bother.
to subject to harassing or cruel treatment,
to oppress, torment, frustrate, harass, etc.
If you have a "concordance" or "index" in your bible, look up the word, "persecute" If not, you can use an online bible and search for the word on it. Not every verse with that word in it is going to be what we're looking for, but it's a good place to start and it's pretty easy to weed out the ones that aren't going to be helpful.
What you'll want to do is read the ones you think may apply to your situation, but you need to read them "in context" and not just that particular verse. If you only read that verse you'd miss a lot of what God has to say to you about it..
Just to give you some good ideas of words to look up when you're having a problem, going through a trial or something like that, let me give you some common words that are always good to look up during these times. You can also use these words to look up if you don't get enough information on the word you choose to look up first:
suffer
enemy
trouble
test
discipline
trial
Or you could look up a word or words that you notice show up a lot in the verses you already found. In the ones I'll list for you, you'll notice the word "perseverance" shows up a lot, so you could look that word up and see what other verses with that word in it say.
Since we're pretending you're being persecuted, I've looked up the word "persecute" in the New Testament, and I've picked out the ones that I think are the most helpful for us.
Remember, when you're doing this on your own, you need to read them in context too so you know how God wants you to respond and why. For that reason, I'm going to include verses that either come before or follow the one with the word persecute in it for you here.
As you read each scripture, you'd ask yourself the following questions:
A. What God is saying to you about how you should handle your situation now,
B. What you should expect or why
C. What He will do for you.
Some of the scriptures won't have all three of those in it, but answer as many of those three questions as you can for each scripture.
I've chosen 7 scriptures for our pretend problem. All you have to do is choose scriptures that looked like they might have something to do with what you're going through. I'll post the ones I chose here so you can see why it's important to read them in context. Obviously when you look up the scripture, you'll first read the verse with that word in it, but then look both back before that verse and after that verse to see what's pertinent to your situation now. (Remember, you're looking for the answers to those three questions I posted above as you read the following scriptures)
1. Matthew 5:44–47
44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
2. John 15:20
20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
3. Romans 12:12–21
12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
4. 1 Corinthians 4:11–13
11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.
5. 2 Corinthians 12:7–10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
6. 2 Thessalonians 1:4–10
4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
7. 2 Timothy 3:12–13
12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Having answered the 3 questions or as many as you could for each scripture you read, you would now do the following:
1. Make a list of steps that you can take to do what God wants you to do about this.
2. Considering everything you've learned now, write down what you think the Lord may be either trying to teach you or help you practice.
3. Ask the Lord to help you respond to this problem the way He's now shown you that He wants you to.
Now that you are all done, all your questions should be answered, and you now know exactly what the Lord wants your attitude to be and what He wants you to do. The most important part of this entire process though is that we should be talking to the Lord about it asking His guidance before we look up the verses, while we're looking them up and studying them and after we've done so. We need to remember that He's right there with us, guiding us and that most of all, He wants to talk to us through His Word and make it personal to us. This way we not only get our questions answered, and answered correctly, but we also become closer to our Lord. This is how the Lord wants us to get our answers for right after talking about trials, He tells us:
James 1:5–8 (NIV)
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
I hope this helps someone.
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