Have you ever tried to work on overcoming a fault only to find that seems to make it worse? Maybe you are concentrating on the wrong thing. A friend just told me that as he rode his bike recently, a rude motorist honked his disapproval that a cyclist was taking any share of the road. I guess this is a common occurrence in the biking world. Anyhow, the incident triggered the very character flaw my friend was fighting: anger.

His take on it was that God was testing him since he was trying so hard not to become angry so easily. I feel differently. What if you are sitting in a room at dusk fighting to hold back the darkness from descending all around you? Now that’s fighting a losing battle. Instead, why not just turn on the light?

Light always dispels darkness. So instead of trying to eliminate what you don’t want in yourself, how about filling yourself with so much of what you do want that there is no room left in you for the anger or impatience or … whatever. Put your concentration on getting to the light switch and flipping it on.

How? Try hanging out more with Jesus. If you hang around with someone, you usually start picking up their ways. They kind of rub off on you. Jesus said; “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

As the light takes over each area of your life, you may wonder whatever happened to the dark spots you so struggled with.

Now listen to the audio version: