living with it

Our society has told us that we are not supposed to have problems.  Society tells us to be young and beautiful and go shopping and have everything that we want and be happy.  Well, I was never beautiful and I am no longer young.  Add to that, we all have our pains.  The hurts from a broken marriage, the death of a loved one, the general fear of life.  We drag such things around like a ball and chain.

We pray for God to take them away.  We ask that he solve our problems.  We have been taught that our life should be easy.  We get mad when it isn’t.  We can even turn on the TV and hear electronic pastors tell us that God wants us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Pardon me, but all of this is a perversion of the gospel.  The gospel is about faith in Christ, not about how comfortable our life is or isn’t.  If you have felt like a bad Christian because you can’t get past some  of the painful things in your life, let me remind you that even the apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh.  He prayed for it to go away, but God said “no, my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Friend it is ok to be broken.  It is ok to be wounded and scared by life.  It is ok to have fears and struggles.  Let’s stop seeing them as the enemy of the Christian life.  They are more like a pair of pants that we have to get up and put on every day.  They aren’t going away any time soon.  Let’s make friends with them and get on with our life.

Instead of fighting it, try saying this, "Good morning Mr. Pain, oh, I see it’s you again.  Well come on, come on with me into my day and you can watch as I pray and live and love and celebrate in spite of you."

When I am constantly thinking about my pains and imperfections, the day can get pretty gloomy.  When we focus our life on our Father, the difficulties fall to the back where they belong.

It’s a beautiful day in God’s world, let’s keep things in perspective so that we can see the good.