Trials, Trivia, and Knowing the Difference

Know any whiners?

Whining is usually caused by selfishness. The more time I spend thinking about me, the more likely I am to see (or think I see) situations in life that I feel have treated me poorly. If I could just get out of myself and focus on other people and their needs, I would probably whine less.

Jesus was certainly no whiner. But, what if He had been? He came to lead people to God. But the religious leaders and His own people often opposed Him. What if He had gotten His feelings hurt, gotten mad, began pouting and left the earth in a huff with His mission unaccomplished? You know what would have happened. We would be without a shred of hope today, had Jesus been a whiner.

Now, lest I appear cold and calloused, we all sometimes suffer real trials of life. When we do, God is always there for us. He allows, expects, even encourages us to come to Him (in faith and obedience) with whatever ails us.

My point is simply this: we humans are awful good at imagining ailments when what we face is really trivia. Say someone treats you poorly. You could get depressed and mope around complaining. Or...you could realize that what you are facing is nothing in comparision to what Jesus faced, dealt with, and overcame on a daily basis. Often, we just need to move on. Remember the old expression, "Don't sweat the small stuff"? The more bad things that happen to me that I will ignore, the more time I'll have to think about my family, my neighbors, and my God.

I guess most trivia starts out as a trial. The stronger I have become, the easier it is for me to move the trial over into the trivia column. I'm going to work on my spreadsheet today. Here's some help:

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might (Ephesians 6:10). Thats my goal, that's where I intend to be. God goes on in that chapter to tell me how to do it. He talks about truth, faith, prayer, and righteousness. If I spend my time working on putting those four in my life, I betcha a lot of my trials will start easing over into that trivia column.