James 1:2 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,”

Look around you and observe. Everyone has problems. The wealthiest can suffer from poor health. The healthiest can suffer in poverty. The most famous experience broken relationships. The best educated can be victims of random crime. The most righteous can suffer depression. The best parents can raise wayward children. If you look and observe long enough you will see suffering and trials in even the seemingly perfect life.

It is wise to avoid all the suffering you can. It is unwise to think you can avoid it all. You cannot avoid suffering, trials and trying times completely. What should your attitude be about unavoidable trials? It is only natural that suffering makes us unhappy. It seems illogical to be happy about something that causes us pain. Wisdom does not always follow natural logic. Wisdom is not always obvious. If wisdom were doing the natural and obvious then everyone would be wise. The wise have observed that our attitude about a trial does not always affect the trial. Our attitude always has effect upon us.

Our immediate feelings at the time of an event are instinctive. The feelings of fear, pain, joy, excitement, love and many others can be very spontaneous. We have very little control over spontaneous instinctive feelings. Look and observe and you will see that we have a great deal of control over long-term attitudes. People do not experience long-term feelings of hatred, greed, anger, joy, hope, love and many more without choosing to focus upon these attitudes. If you are in physical pain, your emotional attitude will not stop the pain. The wise man looks and observes. Of two men in equal pain, the one with the attitude of the joy handles the pain better than the one with the attitude of self-pity.

Life is hard. You cannot avoid suffering. For the best life possible, consider suffering an opportunity to be joyful. How? Ask God for help and give yourself an attitude adjustment.