Life is Just Hard

Photo by Guillaume QL on Unsplash

Trying to wrap my head around the scripture for this Sunday, Luke 13:25-33 which is about the tough choices those who follow Jesus have to make. Somewhat ironically, the first devotional I opened today was based on 1 Corinthians 6:19 about our bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit. Some of the toughest choices in an otherwise normal day are around taking care of my body. I struggle with deciding what to wear, what to eat, how to get exercise. Today my body is fighting back with a migraine and achiness. It might be that I made bad choices yesterday and that has caused today's pain. Likely there are other factors, too - weather, hormones, etc.

I've been known to whine and complain about how hard it is to be a good Christian. I sometimes have a hard time being a joyful Christian because I'm too worried about being good enough. Over the past year I've done a lot of processing these ideas and working on finding joy and feeling ok about being myself.  But that's hard, too.

Life is just hard.

Sometimes the hardest part is letting go of things.  "Things" can be actual, physical things, or "things" can be ideas. One of the ideas I've had to let go of is guilt about not doing something I thought people expected me to do, or not doing something the way I thought people expected me to do it.  The silly part is that, most of the time, the expectation is only in my head and nobody said they expected it. I have to ask myself whether I am going to change my behavior based on the guilt. If the answer is yes, then make the change and get beyond the guilt. If the answer is no, then just let go of the guilt.

Not every choice is black and white, though.  And sometimes I just don't like having to decide.  I'm like the vultures in The Jungle Book movie in the ever-circling conversation: "What do you want to do?"  "I dunno. What do you want to do?" And so on.

The good news is that God gives us grace and space, and is incredibly patient.  As Paul says in Romans 2:4, it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.  Though Paul puts things in a more abrasive way:

"Or do you have contempt for the riches of God’s generosity, tolerance, and patience? Don’t you realize that God’s kindness is supposed to lead you to change your heart and life?"

I suppose the mystery is that the more we depend on God's grace and kindness, the more we find that God's love changes us.

"Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Thanks, God.