Life sucks. Life gets super hard and things start happening where sometimes you look around and feel like the world and God are against you. Lots of things are going wrong, words that run through your mind constantly are: depression, rejection, anxious, pain, hurt, sorrow, poverty, exclusion, failure, not good enough. It's hard to wake up in the mornings because you're fearful of what bad things or news will be thrown your way. Looking around all you see is hurt and misery and you ask, "God where are you?", "God, why me?", "God when will it stop?", "When will I see the purpose?", or "when will I be okay?"
"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong"
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
The Lord gives us these trials and hardships because His power is made strong in our weakness, therefore when we give ourselves over to Him when we are at our weakest then His power makes us strong, and then He makes us strong when we continue to fight the pain and look to Him. The Lord gives us these hard times so that we can fight and take a stand for our faith in Him and say "no." The Lord puts us through hard times, He takes things away, to test us to see if we can push through the entire way with our eyes set on Him. The only thing is that many of us fall away. We decide that it is too hard and we end our fight. But all we have to do is keep our eyes on The Lord, because that is where our strength comes from. Whether we have an abundance of strength to give or if we are giving in our weakness. Our strength comes from The Lord.
"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."
James 1:12
When you feel like your life is falling apart, when it is not where it is supposed to be, when you feel like you can't go on... keep pushing. Because spiritually, you are at your strongest with The Lord. Because that is the point in your life when God becomes the strongest and the most important thing in your life. This is the point where you can't live your life with your own strength anymore, and when you give it over to God, you become the strongest. Just remember that everything that looks strong that is in our lives that isn't Jesus is weak. And it will always fail us, our strength is not found in someone, or something- it is found in Jesus.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man."
Luke 6:20-22
To the world we look weak. We are called the depressed, the anxious, the lonely, the friendless, the single person, the rejected, and the impoverished. What looks to the world as weakness, internally is building eternal strength. To be strong, you must first be weak. You must break down and tear through pain to build up the strength to get through it. And when you look back at this point in your life you won't remember the details of the pain, you won't remember the endless nights crying, you will remember that in the end God provided, and all of that pain was worth it for the outcome that came from it. Push through, and keep your eyes up.
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
Isaiah 40:28-30
