“I will not be brought under the power of any.”~ 1Cor. 6:12
Most of us, if not all, are familiar with the standard response to the question, “How are you?” that being, “Fine, under the circumstances.” My dear friend, Dr. Tom Malone, now with the Lord, used to say, “That’s no place for a child of God to be, so get out from underneath them.”
Oswald Chambers said, “Circumstances are like feather beds—very comfortable to be on top of, but immensely smothering if they get on top of you.” The word circumstance comes from the Latin meaning, “An encircling position, as fluid closing around an object.”
Circumstances encircle the worldlings, but, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”
When Peter looked at the circumstances instead of Christ he began to sink. Like Jonah’s whale, circumstances can swallow you up. It says of Elijah that, “…when he saw,” that is, what was transpiring around him, he went into a deep fit of depression. But on the other hand, when everything was falling apart around Isaiah he tells us, “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.” Here we see it doesn’t have to do with one’s outlook, but his Up-look.