Growth Hope

Persevere in the Pursuit

The Christian life isn’t for the faint of heart.

As much as people may think the religion is a crutch, if you really set your life upon doing the things Christ has called you to do, you will quickly realize that it is not an easy journey.

Sometimes this reality might hit us more forcefully than other times. Like when we’ve failed at doing the things that God has called us to do.

We may diligently strive to live a life pleasing to God, working day after day for His glory, and yet in a moment we may feel that all that work is wasted when we do something that we know we shouldn’t. We may daily fight against our flesh, and in an instant spectacularly fail, not even comprehending why we relinquished the fight.

Even the apostle Paul felt this way. He wrote:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

How many of us can identify with these words?

We want to live a life pleasing to Christ, but sometimes we fail.

Yet, just because we’ve messed up, doesn’t mean that we give up.

We persevere in the pursuit of God because that’s the mark of one who is saved.

And just because we can’t be faultless, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be faithful.

After all, He continues to be faithful to us.

Disclaimer – For those who may be tempted to think that because we can’t be faultless our continued pursuit of holiness doesn’t matter, please make sure you read Romans 6.

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Growth Hope

All I Need

A few months ago, late one night, one of my nieces was taken to the hospital.  At first I convinced myself that “it was nothing,” but like any good aunt I was concerned. My concern intensified when tests indicated that her appendix may have burst. As I thought about all the ramifications of that potential diagnosis, I found myself pouring out my thoughts to God. As readers may know, this has been a particularly rough last year and a half for our family, and some of the struggles I have yet to share publicly. As another painful and challenging trial loomed involving someone so precious and so young, I found myself saying to God, “I need her to be o.k.”  It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. I truly felt like I couldn’t take any more heartache.

As I uttered these words though, the shallowness of my faith was quickly revealed. After all, God knows exactly what I need and He has already graciously provided that in the sacrifice of His Son. If, in order for Him to be most glorified, my niece needed to be o.k., than He would provide that as well (which He graciously did.) If not, than I would still have all I need, because I would have Him.

It’s a hard truth. For most of us, God has been gracious in providing us with numerous blessings. And it’s easy to depend on those gifts, rather than the Giver. But if God, in His divine providence, chooses to remove some of those blessings, we still have more than we deserve, because He has provided a way to have a relationship with Him. On top of that, He has promised to work everything out according to His good purpose.  These are blessings to which nothing on this Earth can compare. He alone can give us them.

If Jesus isn’t all I need in life, than He is not anything in my life, because I’ve relegated Him to a place that He (rightly) refuses to be. Christ is not the Lord of my life if He’s “competing” for my affection. He gets first place, or He doesn’t take any place at all. If I say I need Him, plus His gifts, than I have placed by dependency in something besides Him, and He wants to be my everything.

It was an important reminder to me. It reminded me that I need to treasure the gifts He’s given me, but never so much that I treasure them more than I do Him.  And that regardless of what He gives or takes away, because I have Him, I have all I need.

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