Skip to main content

One Thought that We Must Give Up

               Every year, my brother and I do a week long motorcycle trip together.  This year’s version consisted of driving rain, hail, broken tent poles, three inches of water in my basement at home, two flooded vehicles and a wind so strong that it blew us off the highway and into the ditch.  It was the worst vacation ever!
                Standing on the on the side of the road in the middle of North Dakota with rain pounding down on me, I began to think, “This should not be happening to me!  I am a nice guy who tries to help people all the time. I deserve better than this!” 
Honestly, though, that is not true.  In fact, it is not even logical.  Bad things happen all the time, so why should I be exempt from them?  Logically speaking, bad things ought to happen to me once in a while. 
                More than that, though, those thoughts are not scriptural.  Some believe that if you follow God everything will be easy, but even a cursory reading of God’s word would prove that is not true.  Jesus himself plainly said, “In this world you will have trouble!” (John 16:33)
                In Luke eight, the disciples are caught in a huge storm on the Sea of Galilee and they are scared to death.  Eventually, Jesus calms the sea and saves them, but it is worth noting why they got caught in the storm in the first place. Verse twenty-two tells us that Jesus told them to get in the boat and go out there!  Rather than always protecting us, it seems that God sometimes allows us to experience less than desirable circumstances in order to teach us something that we could not learn in any other way.
                We must stop thinking that bad things should not happen to us.  Jesus did not come to make your life easy or safe.  He came to give you a way home.
                “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).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Consider This: Who Needs Worship?

  Why does God need our worship? The events of Matthew 14 provide at least one answer.   This chapter starts with the beheading of John the Baptist (verses 1-12). This is the first in a series of events that indicate things are about to become much more difficult for the believers. Next, the scene shifts to a crowd gathered on a hillside in Galilee. After listening to Jesus teach all day, the apostles realized that these people had nothing to eat. They brought the problem to Jesus. He took a child’s lunch and fed the entire group of five thousand men plus women and children. Afterwards, they picked up twelve baskets of leftovers (verses 13-21).   Then Jesus told them to get in a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee. As they went, a storm arose, and the apostles were scared. They struggled along until Jesus came to them walking on the water. Peter tried walking on the water too and sank. After Jesus rescued Peter, they got into the boat, and the storm immediately s...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Spiritual Makeover (1 Peter 1:13-16)

 Three responses to the new life God has given us.  https://youtu.be/FmqX5-3jOKc  
Post a Comment
Read more

Consider This: The Danger of Drifting

   Consider This: The Danger of Drifting Most people will not blow up their life in one big, messy moment. It can happen, and when it does, the damage is obvious and instantaneous. Like a car wreck at an intersection, people make a bad decision, and chaos ensues. Parts and pieces scatter all over. People get hurt. Situations like this are unexpected, loud, shocking and scary. Most of us will not wreck our lives in one big, terrible moment. The real danger is that we will lose what is valuable in small, almost imperceptible steps. It happens all the time. You can leave your marriage without ever leaving your house. You can leave your faith while still attending church. You can leave your life while you are still living it. Many people lose what they love, not by making one big, out-of-character decision, but by coasting, disengaging, neglecting and missing what matters. Almost every Biblical list of Christian characteristics mentions “Self-control”, yet I have not g...
Post a Comment
Read more