I've taken a couple months off of blogging - I went through a stretch where I felt like I didn't have anything worth putting out in the world. Still feeling that way, but I'm going to write through it as an attempt to push back. It's November, which means time for the annual thankful post, and this year I'm going to write about thankfulness for God's goodness and faithfulness through harder stretches of life.
First, there's this verse about how God is building you up through difficulties:
James 1:2-4: This is the classic verse about how our character gets built up in hard times. It talks about being firm and unwavering in your faith when difficulties hit, and how the process of going through this is building us up. Sports is similar. In sports, you go through a part of the training cycle where you're pushing really hard - the cardio workouts are intense, the weight-lifting sessions are heavy. Your legs feel tired and your mind and spirit have to dig deep to keep going when workouts are insane while your body is fatigued. But the thing that keeps you going is knowing where this is all headed. At the time when this really matters - the race day, the championship competition -- your mind, body, and spirt will be built up and operating at maximum strength to compete at the highest level, all because of the difficult work in the weeks leading up to it.
So it makes sense to work hard if it's within your ability and if there is something that you are working towards -- but where's the hope that we can do this, or that we have something we are working towards on the other end of the difficult season?
Reason for Hope #1: God's love. The Bible describes God's love hundreds of times - this is a particularly beautiful example. He delights in you, He sings over you. Can you imagine? A God who loves you like that, and who is also mighty as the verse describes, will not leave you hanging forever in the middle of a difficult situation. Nor will He leave you alone as you're going through it.
Reasons for Hope #2: This verse reminds us that we can be steadfast in our faith because God is always steadfast in His kindness. Every morning there are new mercies, new reasons to hope, new examples of God's kindness and faithfulness. Starting with the sunrise, the provision of breakfast, and a new day of being alive. If we aren't seeing God's faithfulness in a particular situation, it means that the story is still being worked out - in a bigger, more surprising, more beautiful way than we are yet able to grasp. (It should be noted that the setting of Lamentations is arguably the most bleak and brutal in the entire Bible - we will not face a situation in life worse than what they faced - and even then, there are new mercies every morning.)
Reason for hope #3: what we are moving towards. Under that first verse, I talked about how intense athletic training prepares you for the championship game. What are we training for in the spiritual realm? An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. It's a little mysterious what that means, but I think it means the love, joy, peace, goodness - all the good things, at unfathomable levels - of being in God's presence forever. And somehow, going through hard things while we're in this life, and clinging to God for dear life as we do, better prepares us for the experience that we're heading towards.
These are the verses that I've been looking to a lot lately, and I'm very grateful for this process and this hope.
