Changes.

Where to start? I can remember reading about the stressors of life when I was doing my nurse training, a list that puts life events in order of stressful impact… I’m not sure how relevant that is in life now to be honest… we just have to change and adapt and little things can be massive and build up and we can take big things in our stride.. odd, life, isn’t it? How we cope and respond is also very individual.

I have to admit, I love to admit it really, not just have to… God is the reason I cope in a much better way now. At one point I would have just drunk my way through any problems that were going on and that would not have worked well, it would have hurt me and everyone around me. He is everything and yet I’m still unfaithful to Him quite frequently. By that, on the whole I mean act in wrongful ways and forget to fully trust in Him.

We are human and He is God, I have to remember that sometimes, that doesn’t mean to excuse purposeful sin, because that is wrong, but to remember that when we hurt and feel and slip up, there is grace for us because as I read in a facebook post this morning, before He chose us He factored in our stupidity. I find that very reassuring.

I feel God has been speaking a lot recently on just trusting Him. Not so much on our identity as His children even, but on focusing on Him. Our God who is loving and kind and slow to anger, the God who saves, the God who does not want anyone to perish.

What I find is, when you focus on who God is, the God who created the world and everything in it, including you, the God who is in charge, who is sovereign, who is present everywhere, all the time, who shows us the right way to go, who we can trust, partly because life is so much more than what we see at this present moment. The God who has already defeated Satan because Jesus died and was resurrected, therefore giving us life with Him. The God who you will stand before at some point, then our attitude starts to change.

Life is not about us, it’s about Him and his will, it’s also so much better than anything we can come up with…. Scripture says we love because He loved us first and that is so right. There’s a lot of gumph spoken about forgiveness, we can only know true forgiveness I think and therefore forgive others and be saved from a lifetime of bitterness and resentment when we look at what Jesus did.

I’ve recently been focusing more on the individual moments of Jesus life, particularly the journey from Gethsemane onwards, each stage a different part. It makes a big difference to you when you see again what it was that He did. I’m not going to go into most of it but a brief summary is: praying in the garden of Gethsemane, the arrest, the decision to crucify Him, the scourging and crown of thorns and the journey with the cross to Golgotha (where Jesus was crucified), the crucifixion, the burial and then the resurrection and ascension. Forgive me, if I’ve left out any part. When you read it, if you read it (and I challenge you to do so), you can be left in no doubt as to the indescribable extremity of what He and those around Him went through and all for the joy set before Him (the joy is us). If you ever feel that God doesn’t know what you’re going through, or blame Him for anything, think on this.

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).

That glory will be worth everything, keep running.