READ: JOHN 16:33; ACTS 16:16-25; ROMANS 8:28-39; HEBREWS 12:1-3

So cold. Such nasty weather. The wind is terrible. The voice in my head was full of complaints. I was ready to get inside and tell everyone just how miserable I had felt on my morning walk. I can’t do this. I frowned. How was I even going to make it inside? It was too cold.

Suddenly, a thought popped into my head: I needed to change my thinking if I wanted things to get easier. A hymn came to mind, and I started singing it in my head as I continued forward. In what felt like just moments, I had covered all the ground I needed to cover, and I was back in the warmth.

In Acts 16, life couldn’t have been fun for Paul and Silas when they were in prison. They hadn’t done anything wrong, yet they were publicly “stripped and beaten with rods” (verse 22), then locked up with criminals in the worst part of the jail. What did the two men do as they sat in the dank inner cell, bloody and bruised, with their feet held fast in stocks so they couldn’t even move their legs to ease the pain? They sang. What did they sing? Songs to God.

Sometimes we need to change our focus in order to get through difficult times. Instead of focusing on the trouble in front of us and the pain we’re dealing with, we need to focus on how great our God is and all that He has done for us. Instead of focusing on the cold wind against our faces, we can thank God for the sunshine He created to go along with that wind.

There are going to be struggles in our lives. There is nothing we can do to stop them from coming. When they come, though, will we store up complaints to share with others—or will we turn our focus onto Jesus and praise God? • Emily Acker

• Have you ever found yourself praising God in the midst of a hard time? What was that like?

• God sees all that we go through, and He has so much compassion on us. Jesus has promised to be with us in all our troubles, and He can truly empathize with us because He experienced our suffering when He lived among us and was put to death on the cross. Whenever we’re struggling, He weeps with us— and He also reminds us that He loves us, that He rose from the dead, and that He promises to raise His people too. We can trust that God is in control, and He will work things out for our good. How can these truths help us praise God in the hard times?

Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! Psalm 147:1 (NIV)