Hi. Have I got a challenge for you today!
So my last blog was about acknowledging the fact that it's ok to hurt, it's ok to be angry, it's ok to find it hard, it's ok in your darkness to struggle and not feel like talking to God. We need to stop being so hard on ourselves sometimes, accept hardship can weaken our humanness and not strive when it kills us or beat ourselves up when sometimes we just can't go on. As long as we are genuine about this and not using it as an excuse to be lazy or ignore God then I think that's ok.
However hardship does come to us all. Some more than others. Often it's not fair. Often we don't understand. I'm troubled this week by the news in which a 4 year old fell off a pier and drowned. And the conviction of the Norwegian man accused of murdering 77 people! Where is justice? Where is God?
Hardships great and small hit us all. We don't understand. Job's troubles are no different. The poor guy has lost everything. When it can't seem to get worse, it does. Looking at yesterday and today's readings you can just see the height from where he has come...
'Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,
when God's intimate friendship blessed my house' (Job 29:4 NIV)
'Terrors overwhelm me;
my dignity is driven away as by the wind,
my safety vanishes like a cloud.'
'I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;
I stand up, but you merely look at me...
...When I hoped for good, evil came;
when I looked for light, then came darkness.' (Job 30:15, 20, 26 NIV)
So where is God? What happens when we lose everything? What happens when our world crumbles around us? Where is justice? Where is reason? Why me? Why us? Why is it so unfair? Why do bad things happen to good people?
It's not easy. I have no answers. I accept that it's ok to question and doubt. I accept that it's ok to be angry at God and question Him, and even not want to speak to Him. BUT my challenge is this...
HOLD ON!!!
We may not understand. We may struggle. We may be overwhelmed with troubles. But in our hardships, fears, doubts, questions... God IS there whether we can feel it or not. God understands even of we don't. God hurts when we hurt. He is an emotional God! Jesus, the image of God, cried, wept, laughed, mourned... He understands. God is bigger than it all whether we see that or not.
So HOLD ON. Even if you have to abandon yourself to do so. Even if you have to say 'God I can't trust you right now things are too massive, do it for me' then say it. This has been my personal prayer for the last few months in my battle with depression.
Let's be a people who are so rooted in Christ, so anchored in His word, so abandoned to Him, so trusting yet so honest that when trouble comes no matter how big, we stand; windswept and battered from the winds and the waves, we stand. Remember the further your roots go down, the bigger the storm you can face.
HOLD ON
AMEN!
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