Many make the mistake of rebelling against the problems they discover around them rather than submitting to God's purpose. Several attitudes are revealed when believers are surrounded by difficulties. Some, with great effort, begin to struggle against the funnel. They devise all sorts of methods and work to the point of exhaustion, hoping to get rid of whatever is causing so much misery. They have not learned that God does not do anything about problems if we're trying to solve them ourselves.

Since He is the only One capable of resolving the problem, the self-reliant believer is in the terrible predicament of being so confident in his own strength that he cannot allow God to provide the solution. After all, such a believer carries an invisible bag of tricks containing all the methods he has developed to deal with emergencies: control, manipulation, religion, anger, running, depression, resentment, emotional blocking, blame taking, blame giving, and the list goes on. If God allowed one of these tricks to resolve the problem, then He would be putting His stamp of approval on such pathetic tools for living, while at the same time encouraging a person's desire to be self-sufficient. It is important that God not allow the bag of tricks to help the believer overcome.

It is easy to spot those who are experiencing a failure of their bag of tricks, for they will become angry, withdrawn, and depressed and often will return to the old sins of the past in the hope that these will give some measure of relief. If they experience even the faintest shadow of the lessening of discomfort, they will once again be working full force on the problem with their satchel. In fact, these belevers have a need to be cured from what is in reality a state of idolatry; an idol simply being that to which a person runs, apart from God, when in the midst of problems. These idols are varied and can include such things as eating, arguing, withdrawing, controlling or hard work. Little bags of tricks reserved for resolving life's problems are in reality nothing more than idols, whose effectiveness God will do nothing to confirm.

We simply do not have the resources within ourselves to overcome our problems and live abundantly. There is one lesson that can be taken from the Pharisees, who possessed the most religious, disciplined, and educated of self lives. Yet they rejected God Himself when they came face to face with Him and are proof that the flesh is of no value in attempting to resolve conflict.

~ Michael Wells, Problems, God's Presence & Prayer