How Can I Use This?

       This morning I was thinking about how sometimes we pray what seems endlessly for healing or deliverance from certain burdens or situations in our lives, but the answer may be no. I was thinking about this and someone I know with a chronic illness. I thought about how they get frustrated, how we all get frustrated that they have to be in so much pain all the time with nothing that can really be done to help them. Then I thought of something I really hadn't before. Maybe instead of praying for healing we're supposed to pray for God to use this situation. I started thinking that we are supposed to pray "God how can this situation be used to glorify you."
       I am beginning to see that sometimes it is in the healing that God is revealed and glorified, and sometimes it's in enduring the illness by God's grace and extending yourself in love to others through your pain, giving hope and inspiration to others around you by your love. I believe in total healing, I believe in miracles, and for a long time I have prayed and wondered why God had not healed this person, or taken others I know out of their difficult situations.  Then I read a post about finding the lesson in suffering and serving right where you are. These thoughts have rolled around and sat in my mind since then until this morning when that thought hit me during prayer; "God how can this situation be used to glorify you." It felt like an epiphany, a revelation of what we were supposed to do in these situations, but also more.
       I know and believe that God works all things for the good of those who love Him(Romans 8:28), I know and believe that God is good in all circumstances and that He can use what seems like bad for our good. But I never thought to pray like this for these situations before. I never thought to turn the suffering around to Him and say "God I know you allowed this for a reason how can I use this to glorify you?" I see now, as I think and pray on this even further that its not just a prayer or practice for the bad situations, or the sufferings I see that we are to do this with all things. With every situation and area of our life, we should be asking "how can this be used for you Lord?"
      I believe I am beginning to understand that if we mean what we say when we say 'God is first', or 'we are living for Jesus' that we must really be turning our entire lives over to Him daily. Each day our prayer should be 'how can I use this to glorify you,' we should be daily seeking to do and live a life that glorifies our King and points others to Him by our walk. I am starting to believe that being a Christian means in every situation and circumstances, in every aspect of our lives His will must be supreme. That whether it be our finances, our pain, a circumstance we are walking through, our family, friendships or jobs, in all we do we should ask, 'how can I use this for you?' I could be wrong, I could be taking this too far, but this is where I am being led, that the Christian life should be total devotion to Yeshua, total surrender of life to Jesus and His call. I hope you will pray and seek for yourselves, let the Lord lead you in His word. Be blessed In Yeshua's name.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths

Isaiah 40:28
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

Matthew 16:24-27
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

1 Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God