The longer I walk with the Lord the more I realize I’m left with more questions than answers. I’ve learned that following Jesus doesn’t look neat and orderly. In fact my life feels more of a disarray than it did before I fully committed my life. Plans fall apart, I’m met with more disappointments and suffering in various formats has become a regular facet of life.
In the past few years I’ve collected a handful of stories to where it has led me to throw my hands up and shout “are you even there”. I’ve lost two brothers who were completely in love with Jesus and huge beacons of light to everyone around them and their deaths seemed so senseless and abrupt. I’ve prayed, didn’t waiver in faith and fasted for friends healings to no avail. I struggle with my own health on a daily basis in autoimmune conditions and a blood disorder that leaves me so fatigued to where I’m at war with myself to even get up. However, there is one common trait among these accounts that make trusting Him worth it. Suffering either drives us away from Him or closer to Him. There is a direct relation to suffering and an intimacy with the Lord that can’t be found outside of heartache. It’s in my deepest pain that I find myself closest to Him.
There are countless scriptures on suffering that are promised to those who desire to live godly lives in Christ. Acts 14:22, John 15:20, 1 Peter 4:12 and 2 Timothy 3:12 to name a few. I firmly believe the more earnest we become about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and reaching the unreached people of the world, and exposing the works darkness, and loosing the bonds of sin and Satan, the more we will suffer and are better off preparing for it ahead of time. It’s easy to trust God when our plans are smoothly on course, but is this truly trust? Trust begins when our plans fail and heartache replaces joy. The Lord often brings trials and discouragements to our lives, not to harm us, but to refine us. His will for us is sanctification which is evident in James 1:2-8. He gives us His peace not for times of peace but for situations when we are most uncomfortable.
I write this in the midst of doubt and grappling to trust Him. What I started out firm in faith embarking on the Race has quickly become an uphill battle to trust His provision and faithfulness. I truly don’t know how I will be able to raise the neccessary funds in such a small window but what is impossible for man is possible with God and regardless of the outcome I will continue to trust and follow Him. I stand on His promises my heart no longer feels.
