Speaking Truth: Life is Hard
I started writing this post two other times and I'm hoping that the third time is the charm!!! I picked the topic Life is Hard and the first time I started thinking about it was while on vacation in Florida. I found myself standing on the shores of Cocoa Beach staring out at the ocean. Sometimes life feels as overwhelming as the waves crashing on the shore...it can knock you off your feet when you aren't paying attention and even take you out to sea where you feel like you're drowning. Why does life have to be so hard?
I started to remember the times in my own life when I would ask myself the same question. I have to be honest, at the time of my questioning I became more and more angry, cynical, and negative. I was focusing on my circumstances and not on the God who could use those circumstances for His glory. I wasn't letting Him. (Let me say that again,,,I wasn't LETTING Him!!!) Here's the thing that I think happens a lot of the time in this life. I think that life got hard for me largely because of my bad choices. Things that I knew I shouldn't have done. With bad choices also come consequences. In those times I honestly believe that God allows me to sit in it for awhile....sometimes even a long while!! Then maybe, just maybe I won't go my own way again!!! This is also usually when we humans start to blame God for the hardness of life. When I started to take responsibility for my bad choices God started to turn my thinking back to Him. He began to challenge me to obey Him in the small things like kindness and patience. Then we moved on to my marriage and my kids. Then because I obeyed in the small things God started opening doors of blessings I would have never expected. Another way of putting it is that He turned my bad choices into my greatest blessings.
There is another reason I believe that life can be hard other than our own choices and that is God is God and He can see what we don't see. This life isn't for nothing. It's preparing us for an eternity with Him and He wants us to be more and more like Him in this life so that when we see Him face to face we will be ready for all of the amazingness He has waiting for us. There is so much in me though that isn't ready. If I'm honest I can be prideful, selfish, full of anger, and generally annoyed with many things that come my way. There are times when God uses hard things in life to get my attention and make me deal with these things that aren't of Him. Hard times can be to my life what fire is to purifying silver or like a gardener pruning a plant. There have been many times in this life that I have looked at the hard times like a deliberately set ditch burn. What comes after the destruction? New growth and beauty.
"After you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will
place you on a firm foundation!" I Peter 5:10
One last reason I think life can be hard is that there are just plain some things we may never understand. We live in a very fallen world, but He asks us to trust Him even when we don't understand. One thing I know for certain about God is that nothing we go through in this life will go to waste! If we can just keep trusting even when we can not see how things could ever get better He promises that one day He is coming back to make all things new. We will see the big picture instead of just the pieces.
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever!!!!!!!" Revelation 21:4
I started to remember the times in my own life when I would ask myself the same question. I have to be honest, at the time of my questioning I became more and more angry, cynical, and negative. I was focusing on my circumstances and not on the God who could use those circumstances for His glory. I wasn't letting Him. (Let me say that again,,,I wasn't LETTING Him!!!) Here's the thing that I think happens a lot of the time in this life. I think that life got hard for me largely because of my bad choices. Things that I knew I shouldn't have done. With bad choices also come consequences. In those times I honestly believe that God allows me to sit in it for awhile....sometimes even a long while!! Then maybe, just maybe I won't go my own way again!!! This is also usually when we humans start to blame God for the hardness of life. When I started to take responsibility for my bad choices God started to turn my thinking back to Him. He began to challenge me to obey Him in the small things like kindness and patience. Then we moved on to my marriage and my kids. Then because I obeyed in the small things God started opening doors of blessings I would have never expected. Another way of putting it is that He turned my bad choices into my greatest blessings.
There is another reason I believe that life can be hard other than our own choices and that is God is God and He can see what we don't see. This life isn't for nothing. It's preparing us for an eternity with Him and He wants us to be more and more like Him in this life so that when we see Him face to face we will be ready for all of the amazingness He has waiting for us. There is so much in me though that isn't ready. If I'm honest I can be prideful, selfish, full of anger, and generally annoyed with many things that come my way. There are times when God uses hard things in life to get my attention and make me deal with these things that aren't of Him. Hard times can be to my life what fire is to purifying silver or like a gardener pruning a plant. There have been many times in this life that I have looked at the hard times like a deliberately set ditch burn. What comes after the destruction? New growth and beauty.
"After you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will
place you on a firm foundation!" I Peter 5:10
One last reason I think life can be hard is that there are just plain some things we may never understand. We live in a very fallen world, but He asks us to trust Him even when we don't understand. One thing I know for certain about God is that nothing we go through in this life will go to waste! If we can just keep trusting even when we can not see how things could ever get better He promises that one day He is coming back to make all things new. We will see the big picture instead of just the pieces.
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever!!!!!!!" Revelation 21:4
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