What To Do When Life Feels Like a Blues Song

This world is ripe with troubles, anybody who says otherwise is not being realistic. Sometimes life just feels like a blues song. Turn on the TV and watch the locals news if you don't believe me. Shootings,  murders, drug busts, families torn apart, children being abused. It's all there, and it's all happening right in front of our noses. Now, transition into the national news and you'll see a broader picture, but one that still includes many, many troubles. Corrupt leaders, conflict and wars, mass shootings, child abductions, on and on it goes. For the most part, no news is good news, and I don't think that phrase  qualifies as a double entendre much any more. Really, it does seem that there is no news that is good news. And once the news gives us a breather from the bad news for a brief commercial break, we're reminded that we're too fat, we're going to die from high cholesterol, our bones are turning brittle from osteoporosis and our joints are inflamed with arthritis, and our sex lives have gone down the tubes from lack of blood flow and enlarged prostates.  Sandwiched in between the Big Pharma ads you'll often see ads of helpless starving children that could be educated, fed, clothed, given medical care, and shown God's love for just about one measly dollar per day.  Troubles are everywhere, and this station in history is not unique. Troubles have abounded since the fall of man. The consequences of sin are everywhere, and one does not have to do much searching to discover them.

Jesus warned  us about troubles. John 16:33 is  the antithesis of the pop culture, feel good Christianity that is corrupting the Gospel in America. If any verse is capable of shooting a cavernous hole into the pseudo biblical teachings of prosperity ministries, I'd say that the very words of Christ  do that. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Pretty cut and dry. Jesus doesn't use words like might or possibly, he says that we will.

Now, troubles seem to come in a few forms. There are troubles that we bring upon ourselves, there are troubles that others bring upon us, and there are troubles that God allows for our own good and for the glory of His kingdom.

So when God is permitting trials to come our way, what is He doing? I mean, if He loved us, He wouldn't punish us or let us suffer, right?  Ever meet a parent who refused to be a parent? They see their role as being a buddy, and when it comes time to discipline, they don't have the courage to do so. Well, usually kids raised that way end up with a lot of struggles. They generally have a difficult time accepting responsibility and aren't fond of authority. A common word to describe people like that would be brat. God doesn't want us to be brats, and since He is God and He knows everything, He does discipline us, and He always does it for our benefit. Hebrews 12:7 instructs us to "endure hardship as discipline; God is treating [us] as sons." Sometimes trials are God's way of revealing character flaws to us and chipping away at them. The pressure of circumstances has a way of revealing what is genuinely inside of us, and usually what is inside is not pretty.

Over the past few years, God has used circumstances to mold me. There is no doubt that like a bratty child I resisted Him. I screamed and hollered and threw tantrums, but He would not relent. Like a good parent, He stood firm, and taught me a most valuable lesson - I am not God and I do not know everything. And when I forcibly resist Him because I allow my circumstances to plant a tiny seeds of doubt, my situation only worsens. 

God is good, and He is most faithful, even when we are not. I can speak testament to that. Even when my spirit was at battle with Him, God was slowly at work, using my hardened  heart to reveal to me areas that were not a reflection of Him. Once I took my focus off of God's truth and began looking at my trials, doubt started to creep in. I wondered how a good God could allow me to lose my job and girlfriend. I wondered how a good God could allow a friend in ministry to participate in me being swindled out of thousands of dollars while I was already suffering financially. At first, all of the wondering didn't lead to bitterness or confusion, but soon it did. As I asked God for answers, He seemed silent. In this silence is where He revealed to me my true character. I grew impatient. Why wasn't God giving me a new job or even the direction He wanted me to take my life in? Why wasn't God forcing Jamie onto a plane and back into my arms? And why wasn't God supernaturally placing enough conviction onto the hearts of those who wronged me that not only would they apologize for hurting a  swell guy like me, but they'd have a Zacchaeus moment and return my money four-fold.

Yeah, so none of  those scenarios played out quite like I tried to convince God they should, and I'm glad that they didn't. God could have granted me my desires. He could have bent His will to conform to mine, but that would not have forced me to examine myself the way that I needed to. If God had allowed me to be comfortable, and if God had given me what I wanted in my time and not His own, then  I would have missed the blessings that my not-so-ideal circumstance yielded. God grants a lot of room for our doubts, but as the God who measures the heart, He also is able to see past the things that we tend to be blind to. God knew that I had a character that was in much need of development, and He knew that I would fight Him during the painful process of building it up.

Here is the paradox - we all at once must surrender our lives to Christ, but that doesn't mean we get to become complacent, it just means that we learn to love and trust Him enough that we submit our wills to Him. It means that we commit to honoring Him with our entire lives, even when our lives seem like a shattered mess and we want to fix it all ourselves. We're going to mess it up, an that will be frustrating, but that is part of the beautiful process. At times we'll act when God wanted us to be still and let Him move. Other times, we'll be still when God opened a door and wanted us to seize the opportunity. This process will involve many spiritual bumps and bruises, but it's a requirement in developing an authentic and trust filled relationship with Him. To me, it is common sense to expect problems in life, which is why I was perplexed that for so long I missed out on the value of Jesus' words before he tells us to take heart during our trouble, " I am not alone for the Father is with me."  Does my relationship with God have that dynamic? Do I know Him so well that when trouble makes its way into my life my first response is knowing that my loving Father in heaven is right by my side? If I don't know Him like that, I have learned that it is quite easy to lose hope and allow emotions to squelch out His truth.  If I don't believe that God is with me during my struggles, it's hard to cling to truths such as "never will I leave you, never will I forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6, Hebrews 13:5). Truth like "All things work together for the glory of those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28). Truth like Jesus reminded us about in John 16:33, that even though life is full of tough times, life and everything in it is temporary and passing away, but He paved a way for everlasting life. That's the perspective that can help us to endure. That's the perspective that will save us from feeling helpless from aiding the broken people and situations in this mixed up world. That's the kind of faith that will help us to live in such an authentic way that at the end of our lives we can confidently say , "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7). Jesus told us we'd have troubles so that we wouldn't develop a contrary point of view.  He wanted us to be aware of the pitfalls of life, and the toll sin has on humanity. But He also wanted us to be so rooted in Him that when faced with the harshness of life we could rest easy in the peace of knowing Him. Jesus illustrated our need for him in John 15:5 when he explains, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." In Him, our lives will bear much fruit, even when the world around us seems totally rotten. In Him, we can do all things (Philippians 4:13), but apart from Him, we can do nothing. For my stubborn soul, it took my heart going on a detour from Him to figure just how those Bible verses are. Turns out the Pharisee in me never even knew how far my heart had wandered from God. I looked real good on the outside, but I stopped guarding my heart and placed my faith in other things and had become nothing more than a whitewashed tomb. But true to His word, God never left me. True to His word, He is working all things together for His good. True to His word, He does treat me like a son and discipline me. True to His word, apart from Him I accomplish nothing that is of worth. I'm so grateful that I serve a loving and patient Father in heaven who knows just when I need a kick in the buttocks and when I need His arms to wrap around me and give me a hug. Even when He disciplines me,  He never fails to assure me that no matter how much I mess up, no matter how messy I get, He still loves me.

I'm amazed to see how I'm reacting to hurdles that not long ago would have left me shaking my fists at God until I was so exhausted I curled up into the fetal position in the corner and cried myself to sleep.  God is continually doing wonders in our lives, and often He is most exalted through our difficulties (2 Corinthians 12:9-11 ). One major lesson I have learned over the course of my last few years of being alive is that our reactions to difficulties are generally an accurate measurement of where we stand spiritually. My hearts desire is to know God so much that nothing hinders my walk with Him. I want to know Him so intimately, that though my world is shaking, I know He is right beside me.  I want to keep my eyes focused on Him, so that unlike Peter, when it's my time to walk on water I don't shift my focus from Christ onto the crashing waves and sink (Matthew 14:22-33).  I've sunk before and each and every time God has come to my rescue, but I'm doing all that I can do to learn from my past so that the next time the waves of life toss me around, my first reaction to is to know that as long as I keep my gaze on Christ He won't let me drown.