Here’s a passage of Scripture which changes my perspective on life in so many ways: “Dear brothers and sisters, when trouble comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” (James 1:2) Did we read that right? An opportunity for great joy? Really?

Yes, that is what James said. Most of the time, we don’t equate trouble with joy. That just seems to be counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But looking at trouble as an opportunity for joy creates a shift in our experience of that trouble—whatever form that trouble takes in our lives.

In Jesus and the Secret, I write about the importance of gratitude:

There is a passage in the Gospel of John, as paraphrased by [Eugene] Peterson in The Message which always jumps off the page…when I read it. “You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience, but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father.” When we have the courage to saturate our minds and our hearts with gratitude, no matter what we can see and touch, we are not living out of the narrowness of our own experience, but rather are standing in the largeness of the Father.

I think this is an important part of the conversation James initiated. We can move from trouble through gratitude to joy! Looking at our trouble with a problem focus keeps us from feeling gratitude. It is a God focus which opens our eyes to all we have to be grateful for. Once we bathe our experience with gratitude, the joy will come!

As you think about how the trouble in your life creates an opportunity for joy, would you share with us the shift you experience? Be as specific or general as you feel comfortable being. And know that as we share with each other, we are encouraging one another. The things you share have the potential to speak to someone reading and can touch them in a very positive way.

Beth Misner is the Director of Journey Center Claremont and author of Jesus and the Secret: Where the Word of God and the Law of Attraction Intersect. To buy the book or Kindle edition, go to http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Secret-Where-Attraction-Intersect/dp/0974081922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314219213&sr=8-1 or download for your iPad, Nook or Sony eReader.