Life is Hard…the Gospel is Sweet!

What is the hardest thing you have ever faced? When was life the hardest for you? It is in that times we often look around and see everyone else’s “perfect life” and wonder “Why me God?” We go through life thinking that it is supposed to be happy and joyful all the time. Happiness becomes and obsession with us. “I just want to be happy,” is a mantra I hear all the time. However, when I ask, “What is happiness?” there is a struggle to define it.

Happiness is elusive and distant. When Happiness becomes our end goal, we are let down and find ourselves more depressed then when we started. Why? Because Happiness is the wrong ideal. It is superficial and fleeting. It is often deeply rooted in selfish desires and pride. “I am happy when I am in control, when I get what I want and when I do what I want.” This is not what we were made for.

Please don’t feel like you are alone in this struggle. Even the Psalmist Asaph struggled with this. In Psalm 73 he describes how he had lost focused by looking at the unbelievers in his life who “had it all.” They were “happy” and “successful.” They were “rich” and “healthy.” Then he looked at his own life and all he did without as he pursued God. He is driven to the point in saying “is following God worth it if I miss out on being happy in this life?”

Yet when he enters the sanctuary, he is reminded of eternal truth. Happiness in this life if futile and fleeting. Without Christ, it leads to death and an eternity of suffering. When he gets the proper perspective he begins to rejoice again in the grace of God, because his future is secure.

Life can be, will be and is hard. Yet those who place their trust in Jesus, who choose to follow Christ with their whole heart, have a hope that is bigger then the pain of this world. Knowing that God loved us so much to enter our world, our pain and our struggle. That Jesus took our sins upon His shoulders on the cross and paid our debt. That He rose again the third day, conquering sin and death, so we could be reconciled to the Father. Then He gave us His righteousness and the gift of the ever present Holy Spirit. He also gave us the promise of a future hope of being with Him forever in Eternity. It is because of this sweet sweet Gospel, that we can have confidence when life is hard.

The Apostle Paul put it this way. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”

(Romans 8:18 ESV).  When we fix our eyes on Jesus, when knowing Him becomes our focus and not happiness, we begin to see life as it is meant to be seen. We will see that God uses our struggles, our pains and our trials to shape us to be more like Him. That He is always working. And on top of that, He gives us seasons of happiness too.