harder

I was at church last sunday night when we had one of our water baptism services. 12 people had come to the point in their lives where they wanted to make a public declaration that they are Christians, going under the water and coming back up a citizen of the kingdom of God. Part of the night involved videos of each person explaining why they had made the decision to get dunked. The one that grabbed me, not because I could identify with it but quite the opposite was a girl who made the statement that since she became a christian she was happier, like happy all the time.

That kinda struck a chord with me, probably because if anything the opposite has been true. Since becoming a Christian and making the decision that God is my Lord and Jesus is my Saviour life has been anything but happy happy joy joy all the time. If anything, life has had more downs than ups, or at least the downs have been a whole lot more intense than I remember them being prior to that. I had to think about what tangible change (if any) has been made in my life since I decided to give my life to God.

If anything the change has been that my life has become harder. Not harder in the sense of more difficult, but harder as in steel in my bones harder. Like when I decided to become a christian God put me on the table, opened me up and grafted titanium into my bones, Wolverine style... unfortunately I don't have the blades that come out of my knuckles, those would be fun. Sure life has had some major ups and downs over the last few years, sometimes leaving me standing there wondering what the heck just happened and where the ground went because it wasn't under my feet when I checked last. The world that I live in hasn't stopped having it's nasty moments or chronically stressful times, but I now have a foundation that I can stand on and build from that is more sound and solid than the natural world that I see with my eyes.

I have a relationship with a God who's promises are always true, and the only thing he can't do is lie. His promises to me are found in Jeremiah 29:11,

11I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. 12"When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen.

Romans 8:28

He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don't try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he's the one who will keep you on track.

It's very true that what is seen in the physical world is often echoed in the spiritual world. A tree planted on solid ground with a good, well developed root system will be able to stand through the toughest, roughest of storms. Sure it suffers bruises and beatings from the storm, but it's never enough to kill it or break it. It makes it through the storm and on to live through the next day. We're the same. If we plant ourselves in God, put our roots down through prayer and reading the bible we'll become stronger and more able to weather the storm and come out of it in one piece.

The other end to the picture is the fact that God will never let anything get to you that you can't deal with. I'm not going to go into detail with this one because James Macpherson has written an incredible series on that very topic, called "Your Trouble's in Trouble" which can be found by clicking the following links
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

While it's not the nicest thing to go through the trouble and the storms of life, I have the hope that God gives that says you'll make it through, I guarantee it!