Good and Difficult
A big part of the Christian life is learning to really trust that God is good. You know in your head that God is a good God; you hear sermons about it, read scriptures about it, and sing songs about it. But even with all those reminders, I still struggle to believe it sometimes.
When everything around us seems to be going wrong and our life is crumbling at the foundations, we lose sight of God’s goodness because we are shrouded in the feelings and thoughts created by our circumstances. Personally, I struggle to see God’s goodness when things aren’t going the way I think they should be. Every Christian has this struggle at some point in time. We forget that when we signed up to be a part of God’s army, we really were signing up for an army. There will be battles to fight, giants to face, and dreams to lay aside. God did not promise that life would be easy: He told us to take up our cross and follow him.
Perhaps we need to be reminded that it was not without reason that Isaiah called Jesus “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Follow Him down the path that he took — a path that was paved with pain, suffering, heartache, trial, temptation, frustration, and even death. If we take His path we will surely experience all of these things.
However, if we stick to the path laid out for us in scripture, trusting in Him, God will reveal to us His goodness, His grace, and His love. He promised to pick us up when we fall, to carry us when we have no strength, and to lead us to a glorious finish and a new beginning. Because of His goodness, I can’t wait to pick up my cross again tomorrow, even though it seems heavy. If I am in His will, He will help me carry it.
You could not be any more on target, at least as to feeling and seeing the same things I have been seeing and feeling.
The altar is for consuming the sacrifice, the sacrifice is your very life, but JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY comes in the morning, translated, JOY comes when God arrives to walk with you in his garden. Keep chasing him, your healing lies in your honesty, when the feelings associated with your pain rise to the surface do not put them in the closet and try to forget the sorrow, rather embrace the moment together with Jesus and feel his healing flow to replace the pain, an exchange!
You give him that pain and memory, he gives you life and a new perspective, healing and victory.
With Love, your brother,
SKET
“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus”
And I like what you say about God revealing things to us. Through the difficult things we find out God’s a Healer, Consoler, Deliverer, Refiner, and best of all He’s just a Father.
What really spoke to me was this line: “There will be battles to fight, giants to face, and dreams to lay aside.”
So often I try to keep everything — to have the promises of God and have my own way as well. I don’t want to exclude the things that I like from my life. But making a choice does exclude everything else, and if I’ve really chosen God . . . well, it’s obvious what needs to be excluded. My ways have to be laid down. I have to count all of it as loss “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,” in the hope — yes, hope — that one day I can say with Paul that for Him I have suffered the loss of all things. (Philippians 3:8)
God is truly AMAZING!! We often make depression our comfort zone and neglect the fact that we have a caring God who only wants the best for us. Sometimes we wonder why we go through some harsh testings and trials but let us all be like Job being comforted by the fact that “he knows where [we] are going, and when [he] tests [us] [we] will come out as pure gold.” Isn’t that awesome to know? let us be reminded everyday and fight the good old fight of faith- trust God and order our steps in his word.
Great article!
Amen to Adam et. al. It all depends on the definition of good. To a coach a torturous regimen is good. To a piano teacher grueling repetition and endless scales are good. Every patient thinks it’s good that their doctor had to sludge through years of schooling and internships. We too often judge God by the life we are experiencing, but when we see the big picture we see the benefits of our struggles… we also see all the bad stuff He keeps us from.
Kay-Ann said it well; trust God and order our steps in His Word.