And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. -Philippians 4:8 NLT

Adjusting the focus of our hearts and minds, from the negative, the stress, the troubles, and the pain, to the praise and majesty of the Lord will be one of the best shifts we can make in our lives. By obsessively dwelling on the issues we face, in an unhealthy way, we only feel them more deeply and struggle to rise from them. What I mean by this is by constantly worrying or complaining without taking action to aid the issue does us no good. For example, if your heart is constantly burdened by troubles in your marriage, I’m not saying to push those cares aside as if they don’t matter and just praise God for being married. What I am saying is to bring your marriage to the Lord, talk over the issues with God, seek His counsel and act on His guidance, all while praising Him through the process. As well as, actively seeking to mentally lift up the good that still surrounds us.

Turning our focus to the good can be challenging when walking through deep trials so I offer this, when you can’t see a silver lining, see Jesus instead. When you can’t find the good in the situation, find Jesus amongst the mess. When you can’t imagine things will get any better, imagine the Savior of the World holding your hand tightly and not letting you go.

Adjusting the focus of our minds to be in the presence of Jesus certainly doesn’t take the problem away, but what it does do is it takes the power away from the problem. Trust that God knows where you are and knows every detail about your situation. It may not seem fair or easy, it may not make even the slightest bit of sense to our human minds, but He ultimately has good for you. Keep your eyes firmly locked on Jesus. Keep moving forward, looking up to our hope and what is to come.