Just One Step Despite The Struggle

"Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it."

Proverbs 13:11
 

This is such an odd verse to start out with considering what I am about to talk about; never the less, this is where I must begin. I was reading my devotion this morning on the subject of hope which took me to Proverbs 13 where verse 11 happen to catch my eye. The breakdown of this verse is very simple, that which is easily obtained is most often easily let go of, while that which we are forced to work hard for we tend to treat more responsibly. As a child I wanted everything I saw and would get mad when I could not have it. Money meant nothing to a five year old boy with no job. Turning sixteen however and wanting a car required me to go and find a job. After working my tail off for minimum wage and gaining a deeper comprehension of a hard day’s work, what I bought required a much bigger thought process than, "I want that!"
 

Now I am standing in a different situation, but the principle behind this proverb seems to be able to be applied here also. If you do not know me, I have spent the last 3 years fighting cancer. I am currently in remission, but I have to deal with the aftermath of having had a bone marrow transplant. This has caused a lot of my plans and dreams to change or shatter all together as I have spoken of in previous post. It can be very difficult at times to know how great of a God I serve, a God I know is all powerful and with no effort could restore my body. The question of "why am I still going through this?" consistently crosses my mind. Often times it teems with bitterness and resentment! I mean seriously, what the crap God! But then I look at the flip side of having had to walk this journey out little by little, step by step. I see the good that has come from being forced to remain in this circumstance. Sure I want and would love to be able to wake up tomorrow with all this behind me, but I am (though with great struggle) also joyful to be able to wake up tomorrow and take one more step on this path as little by little my victory is slowing drawing near. A victory that being forced so hard to fight for, I cannot imagine I would ever so easily let go of.
 

When you are in the midst of your own struggle, to read this seems stupid and dumb. It makes you want to say, "That’s great for you, but you don't know me and what I'm going through." You are right I do not! But here is what I do know. I know what it is like to walk in to my room and sit on my bed and cry until there is nothing left. I know what it feels like to look at tomorrow with no hope of anything better waiting there for me. I know what it is like to want to quit and give up. I know what it is like to sink so desperately low that everything just feels numb and dead inside. I know what it is like to hurt so deeply physically and emotionally that death looks like relief and salvation. I know what it is like to hear someone say "God has a plan for all this" and just want to scream, yell and hit them in the face. I know the anger and the bitterness that has filled my heart as other people's dreams come to life and prosper around me. We are not all walking through the same things, but many of us are feeling the same consequences of the struggle we are in.
 

I battle these feelings to this day, more than I care to admit, but I press on one step at a time. I do not know how long I will struggle down this road and if it ends in healing or in death. I can worry about whether I will ever make it through all this until I end up making myself sick (and many times I have done just that) but this serves no good purpose! Whether I must walk ten more feet or a thousand more miles, I must first take this next step. That is what is so amazing about having faith in God. Faith does not require me to gather up the strength to finish this journey; faith only requires that I find that little bit of strength to take one step, just one single step. Psalms 37:23 says the steps of a righteous man are ordered by God. Each step you take in overcoming your current circumstance is a step God is ordering, a step God is blessing, a step God is using to get you closer. Isaiah 43:2 shows that God is not always going to teleport us to the other side of the journey; but that if we trust Him, He will protect us as we walk through our struggles. Even though each step we take is hard, nothing changes the simple fact that the second step down this road can never be reached until the first one is taken.

It is a crazy way of thinking, focusing on just one step or one moment at a time when circumstances can be so huge. I am by no means an artsy person, but I can appreciate the talent and skill of being able to take a piece of stone or a few colors and create such beautiful masterpieces that are showcased all over the world. Works of art that are so inspiring and beautiful that people travel thousands of miles and pay money and wait in lines just to be able to look at Michelangelo's David or Di Vinci's Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Starry Night or Alexandros' Venus de Milo. Despite the intricate and delicate process in creating these masterpieces, they all started the same way: just a single brush stroke or chisel and then another and another. Stroke after stroke, chisel after chisel, beauty began to emerge until finally the artist stepped back and saw that the work was complete. Little by little wealth is built, little by little beauty is created, and little by little life changes and struggles do end!

 

I told you earlier I got so mad at someone when they would tell me, "God has a plan for all this." Well now let me give you that same opportunity to hate me and want to hit me in the face. I have seen the good has been brought out in other people as I have walked this  struggle out. The only reason I can stand here now is because of the people that surrounded me, prayed over me, encouraged me and reminded me I still have purpose and meaning despite everything cancer has taken. How insane that without even trying to do anything other than survive, I was helping to strengthen and grow the very people who are helping encourage and strengthen me. I was in no way trying to do anything for them. I looked at my life in those dark moments as being insignificant and pointless; and yet all the while, God was using what I thought to be a mundane meaningless life to help encourage people to hang on and take one more step through their own struggles.
 

See, it is not that we win the war, it is that we fight the battle! It does not even matter at the end of the day if I have stumbled again as long as I get back up! That is what changes the world, that is what pulls others up out of darkness. Do not fool yourself into believing people do not see or know your struggle, hurting people recognize hurting people. And when they see you hurt and fall, it shows them they are not alone in the struggle! And when they see you get up despite the pain and take one more step, it shows them that it is not impossible! And when they see you get back up again and again and again, it reminds them that what they are fighting to overcome is worth it! And when you look up and reach back out to God, it shows them they have not fallen beyond the reach of grace and redemption. Your struggle not only grows your faith but it gives hope to others to go on! You are not alone! Jesus himself asked God for another way before being arrested and beaten and crucified. The road ahead of him in the garden was going to be long and painful, but Jesus knew that with each step His Father was creating something so beautiful that 2000 years later, it is still changing the world!
 

Remember, just because we aren't all dealing with the same problems, we still share a lot of the same feelings they create. I do not need financial advice from someone who has won the lottery; I need it from someone who has built a life upon principals and experience. It is the same thing with dealing with my heartbreak and sorrow. When someone can see you have went or are going through all the hurt and trails and tribulations they are going through, your testimony carries so much more depth and power. Socrates advised mankind to "Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writing so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for." Life is happening all around us; sometimes it is good and beautiful and sometimes it sucks with every breath we take! But life is also moving forward little by little, step by step in your life and the lives of people all around you. So today begin to change your outlook. Do not become overwhelmed by how far you may think this road is, but seek and trust God to give you that little bit of strength so that you may once again take just one more step. Little by little this battle will end and a lasting victory will be obtained!

He Works All Things to Our Good!

Romans 8:28
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

So here I am, I have been saved through my declaration of faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 10:9); I have been justified by the blood of Christ (Rom 5:9); and therefore I have been chosen by God and called out of darkness(1 Peter 2:9). Because of this, when I read Romans 8:28 I think, "Ok, life is hard and it even kinda sucks right now, but God has good for me somewhere in the midst of all this." When my wife was sick and no one could tell us what was wrong with her, God had good in this for me. When my wife walked out on me, God still has good in this for me. When I got diagnosed with cancer, God...He has good in this for me. When I am left in financial ruin from hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, God...He has to have something good in this for me. When I am left isolated and cut off from the world trapped in a hospital room, God...He does have something good in this for me...right? When my dream of having kids is stripped from me through radiation and chemo...God where is there anything good in this?" It was all so easy at first to believe, but as thing got worse it all made less and less sense this...this "good" that God is supposedly working for me.

I have spent the last few weeks hurting and discouraged, wrestling with the purpose and the meaning of everything that has happened over the past few years. Constantly asking God why? I have become so sick of hearing, "God works all things to the good of those who love him." What does that even mean? What are you saying because my life goes from bad to worse I don't love God? Of course I do, that is why I am here! That is why I keep fighting, because of the hope that there might be good at the end of all this. But it all seems to have gotten so frustrating and so confusing. Nothing seems to make sense any more. I break down and cry most every night just wanting something to change. Just wanting to know that God hasn't forsaken me in all this.

In my life, I have found that most of the time, I am my own biggest obstacle in getting to the truth. See I keep waiting for God to do something good for me; it is like I am looking for some reward for having endured through these past few years. And then like a mack truck it hits me. I have been defining "good" by my terms and not by God's. So how does God define "good"? I began reading the New Testament to see what Jesus constantly describe as being good. I looked through the Gospels and I was amazed at how many times Jesus talks about how "good" trees bear "good" fruit. If good is bearing fruit, then would not part of what God is "working for my good" be that I bear fruit. But how can I bear good fruit with a testimony of such pain and hardship? What do I say, "Hey you should become a christian so the world can take a giant crap on you!"

I mean if we are going to be realistic, my life isn't a good selling point for the christian life. Sure look at Joseph and everything he went through: he was abused by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely charged with rape, and forgotten for years in the prison system but in the end, he became 2nd in command over the entire Egyptian Empire. Or Job, a man God had blessed with a large family and much wealth, he watched as his family, friends and servants die all around him, he lost everthing, he was physically afflicted with sickness but in the end, the Lord blesses the latter half of Job's life even more that before. There hardships lead to a blessed life, while mine has me in the hospital yet again, watching as my life continuing to spiral downwards. In truth, I guess what I have been waiting for is that turning point where things finally go from radically bad to radically good.

And there it is. I said I was often my own obstacle to getting to the the truth. Well the truth is that I have been looking so hard for something good to happen to me, that I missed all the good happening around me. I missed my C24 students using my story to witness and comfort their friends; I missed them growing as they dug in to pray for my recovery and healing. I missed people that I haven't even met finding joy and hope in my story. I missed a 12 year old boy who ask his mother what fasting was and after she told him that it is a practice often done to ask God to meet a specific need, that young man spent then next week fasting lunch for me. You see I got so wrapped up in my self and in "my good" that I forgot it that it was never about me. Joseph got it and after everything he went through, when he met his brothers who had so brutally betrayed him for the first time in years, the brothers thought it was the end, that he would exact his revenge on them. But Joseph upon seeing them says, “Don’t be afraid...You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Gen 50:20)

Without any help from me, my testimony has been producing "good" fruit and now I see that what the world and sin intended to harm me, that God has been working it all to good. In the mist of my affliction and despair, I remember Gods love and compassion for me and therefore I have hope (Lam 3:21-22). God has not ended my life, but has carried me through troubled waters and the good is not fame, fortune or power, but a testimony of His love, a testimony of faith, a testimony of hope, a testimony of endurance. Maybe tomorrow will be better, maybe tomorrow will be worse; either way, I know that tomorrow will bring new opportunities to tell of how I did not die, but I lived and because of that I will proclaim all that the Lord has done and is doing in me. For truly in the darkest of times, God is working all things to my good!

Oh How He Loves Us!

Springville, Alabama, home of the Tigers football team. I had the pleasure of being in attendance back in October for the annual Home Coming Parade. Falling in with tradition of southern football, faithful fans lined Main Street despite low temperatures and light rain. I joined in with the spectators to cheer on the marching band in support of some my youth group kids. I soon found the family of one of my girls anxiously awaiting to see their daughter Kassie march through the town. As the sound of the approaching band grew louder, the family begain to cheer and call out as there baby girl marched by. As Kassie's face lit up and she began to beam with joy, I found God begin to break me inside.

October had to be one of the hardest months I have ever been forced to endure in my 27 years upon this Earth. Life began to crumble around me and I felt as though I was in a tailspin heading straight for the ground. I rarely slept and I rarely ate; as much as I tried to fight, life felt as though it was nothing more but a cold deserted waist land. Hopes and dreams were circling the drain and I felt lost and out of place. Joy had become a distant memory of a time long ago. And yet here in this misery, God used a 15 year old high school student and her family to show me just how much he loved me.

Later that night, I stood in a worship service feeling like doing anything but worshiping. I was so consumed with the failures of life, that I felt to unworthy to join in worship. The more I actually tried, the worse I felt. I found myself just standing there telling God how sorry I was for my silence. And then I saw the replay of the parade running through my head. I was completely confused and then God began to make it all clear.

God: "What made Kassie so happy today?"

Me: "Well I guess it was because we were all cheering for her."

God: "Were there not others before and after you cheering as she went by?"

Me: "Yes, I guess there was."

God: "Why did they not have the same affect on her?"

Me: "I guess because she did not know them."

God: "So it was seeing those that loved her cheering her that filled her with Joy?"

Me: "I guess. I don't understand God?"

God: "I know. You are feeling bad right now because you can't find the will to join in worship right now. You think that it makes you a bad person that you are struggling to show me that you love me. What you don't understand is that I don't need you to tell me anything. Yes I do rejoice in my children and in their love for me but there is so much more that I long for. I know your heart and I know you love me, but what I need you to see and to understand is that I love you. I need you to know that even in the cold and in the rain, I am the one that is standing on the side of the the road going crazy cheering for you. You think that you have control of what is happening. You think other peoples mistakes are yours. You think that what you do affects me. What you don't get is that there is nothing that is ever going to stop me from cheering for you because there is nothing that will ever stop me loving you."

Our relationship with God is never about what we bring him, for nothing I can offer will ever suffice. Our relationship with God is simply about understanding that He loves us without condition and without hesitation. See a stranger cheering Kassie on really doesn't mean that much, but to see her family and friends out there enduring the elements just to see her march by for a few seconds brought an overflowing joy to her; a joy that immediately became evident with her smile and laughter. If we can only understand that as we march through this life, God is not only there when it is pleasant or convenient, God is there when it hurts and when it is hard and when everything is going wrong. He is there calling out our name and cheering us on. If we can only keep that picture in our minds, then the joy that overflows from that love will be the light that destroys the darkness in our life and in the lives of those around us. No matter what you have done, no matter what has been done to you, God loves you.