Life is hard, but God is Good

 We all have "stuff".  At any given moment, we are all dealing with something that makes us at least a little uncomfortable.  If you aren't, then I guess I'm happy for you.  But watch out.  It's coming! 

I can look back and think of so many struggles that I went through that I called trials.  And they were trials.  Like potty training my oldest.  It took 10 months to get that girl to poop on the potty.  Or like moving across the country as a junior in high school.  Gosh, those were definitely trials.  Yet life at the moment feels like a much bigger trial.  Maybe that's part of it - whatever you're in at the moment can sometimes feel worse than anything you've ever gone through.  Just because it's what you're in right now. 

As a believer, it feels like you're supposed to handle a trial in a certain way.  The way those super-mature believers seem to handle trials when you see them at church and you ask them how they're doing and they answer with a sweet smile and say they're trusting in the Lord and praising Him through the storm.  But you don't see them at home on their knees with tears running down their faces begging the Lord to let it end.  Come to think of it, even Christ begged our Father to get Him out the mess He was about the face.  But praise God He stuck it out and paid my way to abundant and eternal life! 

Abide.  I was reminded of the passage in John 15 where Christ commanded over and over for us to abide in Him, "for apart from [Him] we can do nothing".  A good friend recently reminded me that abiding is simply clinging to Him.  You don't always have to have a smile on your face or be happy about your circumstances.  But it is simply a constant remembering of His faithfulness.  Of His goodness.  Of His strength.  Of His sovereignty.  It's running back to Him again and again and asking Him for the faith that we lack and for the strength to keep going. 

Today I opened the Bible to Isaiah 40.  Starting in verse 27 it says this: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel; 'My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God'?  Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.  His understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.  Even the youths faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

I had to include that first verse because that's what I have been tempted to do lately.  Believe that "my just claim is passed over by my God."  That basically, He's just not being fair.  So I remind myself once again if the truth of His Word and trust Him to renew my strength and grow my faith. 

Praise God that He doesn't grow weary with me and my unbelief!  He hasn't given up on me and He never will.  Wow, what a promise :)