Life is beautiful, but it is oh, so heavy. There is nothing that exists in this world
more wonderful that is so incredibly hard to bear. Every school year I inevitably reach a point
where I just feel weary. Usually, it
hits me sometime around February, but this year it hit me within a month of
being back on campus. I feel like the
man from those old Geico commercials who pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling
and had a millstone fall on his head. This
early on into the school year and I’m already finding myself wishing that Life
Alert made a version of their handy buttons for my life. All I would have to do when the weight of the
world brings me to my knees is press a button and moan the classic line, “Help,
I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
But I don’t write this particular blog post to complain
about my lot in life, rather, hopefully, as an encouragement to those who
are going through circumstances much harder than my own. You see, my own exhaustion as well as a TED
Talk I watched tonight about light and darkness, started me thinking about how
the Lord has used the various trials in my life not to break me down, but
rather to build me up.
Now it would be easy for me to say my last sentence if I had
not ever experienced any real hardship
in my life, but from the age of three, God has brought into my life a number of
defining trials. I most certainly cannot
claim that the life I have lived has been an easy one, but I can say with the
utmost confidence that it is a good one.
During the various hardships of my life, God has taught me a few things
which I would like to share with you in this blog post.
***
When you can’t go any
further, take another step:
When the day comes (and it will come sooner or later) that
you are so beat down and exhausted that you just are not sure how you could
possibly go any further, remember that you can. During my hardest year of high school, Junior
year, we took care of my Grandfather who had Alzheimer’s disease. To make a very long story short, I ended up
having to study for my final exams at the foot of my grandfather’s death
bed. Let me tell you, nothing seems less important than
studying for a test when one of your heroes lies fading away in front of your
eyes. Each night, as I told him goodbye
for what could easily be the last time, I would go home and cry, not only from
grief, but exhaustion. I remember one
night, my entire family sitting in the living room crying and praying for
strength because our storehouses had run dry.
It was during that time that God made it very clear to me that when you
find you have strength to go no further, just ask God for the strength to take
another step. When you take things
step-by-step, you will soon find that you have walked a mile. What you need is not the strength to make it
through to the end of the hardship, rather just the strength to make it through
the next moment of it, and the next, and the next; one at a time until you find
you have reached the end. Just follow
the path God has prepared for you and let him worry about where it leads. Matthew 6:34 says, “Do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough worries of
its own” (NIV).
Do not be afraid to
tell God that you do not understand:
As modern Christians we are so afraid of telling God that we
are angry with Him when we are hurting.
We feel as if it is heresy to tell an “omniscient” being that we feel He
was wrong and that we do not like what He did.
But let me ask you a question, does God not already know how you feel
about what is going on in your life?
Psalm 139:2 says, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my
thoughts from afar” (NIV). If telling
God that was a sin, would not thinking it be just as much of a sin? I struggled with these thoughts for years,
until finally last year I came to realize that it is not a sin to tell Him that
it feels like He was wrong to do
something to me, instead it is a sin to tell Him that what He did to me was wrong. One way I accuse, the other I tell God how He
already knows I feel. So do not be
afraid to cry out to God that you do not understand and tell Him that you are
mad at Him (David spent much of the Psalms doing that very thing), but when you
tell Him how you feel, ask Him to show you otherwise; I can assure you that He
will.
Find someone to
confide in:
Find someone that you can share your struggle with. Whether that be a mentor or a close friend,
you need to find someone to whom you can talk.
Not only will you have someone to confide in, but the odds are that
whomever you confide in, has dealt with something in their life that allows
them to relate to you and give you advice.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any
trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the
sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ”
(NIV). One the many ways that God
converts bad into good is by taking the lessons and wisdom we learned from our
own trials and allowing us to help others through the same exact thing with
them.
Do not neglect your
time with God:
When the darkness overwhelms you, keep the light on. Jesus, light of the world, can light up the
darkness, if you just let Him!
Philippians 4:12-13 says, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know
what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any
and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty
or in want. I can do all this through
him who gives me strength” (NIV). God is
your source of strength, so do not forget to spend time with him.
Remember God is in
control:
Famous Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was once asked
why he did not flinch in battle as bullets flew past him and he responded, “Captain, my religious belief teaches me to
feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not
concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when
it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all
would be equally brave” (The Oxford Dictionary of Civil War Quotations, 2006). I find so much peace in the fact that God is
in control. With God in control, it is
not up to us to make everything work out perfectly. Therefore, we should take comfort in this and
remember Matthew 10:29-31 which says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are
worth more than many sparrows” (NIV).
Trials only make us
more beautiful:
I recently heard Rev. Kevin M. Smith of New City Fellowship in Chattanooga, Tennessee
speak in a chapel at Bryan College on my favorite passage in the Bible, 2
Corinthians 4. Verses 7-12 in particular
say,
But we have this treasure in jars
of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not
from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down, but not destroyed. We always carry
around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also
be revealed in our body. For we who are
alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his
life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you (NIV).
Rev. Smith pointed out that the cracks in the jars caused by
our trials and tribulations only succeed in allowing the treasure within to
shine through. In Christ, trials can do
nothing more than make us beautiful! The
passage goes on in my favorite verses in the whole Bible to say,
Therefore we do not lose heart.
Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day
by day. For our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but
on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is
eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
No matter what trials we go through, we can rest assured
that God is doing a work in us! What a privilege
that is!
Sometimes we need
darkness to appreciate the light:
On occasion the Lord allows us to experience hard things to
allow us to fully appreciate something coming up. God has shown me that sometimes I need a wakeup
call from the monotony of life, so that I can truly appreciate God’s blessings
in my life. Without darkness, there can
be no light. Sometimes the Lord allows
us to experience moments of extreme pain and cold darkness so that our moments
of bliss may be made poignant and the light can warm us.
***
Very well written and apropos.
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