Talking to Yourself in a Trial

In trials, you cannot directly control your emotions, but you can change them indirectly by leading your mind toward the right biblical considerations. Thinking about trials God’s way generates the proper inner and outer responses. As you begin to see trials more and more from God’s viewpoint, eventually you will read the place where you can rejoice in them.

This doesn’t just happen; it takes a deliberate act to wrench your mind out of the pagan cesspool of thought into which you have allowed it to wade. Over the years, perhaps you have slackened the reins and allowed your mind to much around the swamps along the well-worn pathways of sin and misery—but now, redeemed by the good of Christ, regenerated by His Spirit and given a new heart oriented toward God and capable of living for Him, you are able to seize control for the reins and lead your mind to the pure, refreshing waters of life.

– Jay Adams, A Thirst for Wholeness, pp 18.