Highs and Lows

We all have days that we feel good and everything seems to work out and even if it doesn't we don't mind too much. Then we have days like I had today. The whole day creeps by and there is nothing really that makes it a bad day, you just feel that its a bad day. There are days when you are safely behind God's hedge, protected from everything that this world and the enemy can throw at you and there are days when your guard gets let down for some reason and everyone of the devil's fiery arrows finds its way to your heart. (The devil has great aim by the way)

For about a week I had been behind the hedge. Walking on water if you will, just hearing God's voice and following after Him wholeheartedly. I joined a gym, I was eating better, work was all caught up and going well, most importantly I was in God's word and on my knees before Him often. I even found a great church and made a new friend. Everything was moving and in the right direction to boot.

However, since the beginning of this week things have slowly started moving downhill. It was just little things at first. Little doubts that my good fortune would last, tiny setbacks, bouts of boredom or loneliness. All signs that the devil was busy planting little land-mines in my mind, that he was once again waiting outside my door, waiting for the chance to devour me.

The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 2:3 says "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." It tells us plainly that hardship is a part of the Christian walk and that we must be ready for it and endure it like a good soldier endures hardship everyday on the battlefield. Unfortunately for me, I really stink and enduring.

Not only is this a problem that has shown itself in my faith but also in every other area of my life as well. My job, my relationships, everything. I can persevere for a moment, for one glorious spurt I am doing good and then hardship comes and I fall apart. Discouragement, lonliness, failure, the Devil knows so well how to reach me. God sends me reminders throughout the week, little hints that He is working and I am full of faith and hope. But they stop for a day or two and I am disparing that nothing is changing fast enough and I have forgotten the blessing before.

Am I so like the Isrealites in the Old Testament, who walked across the the ocean on dry land, saw it swallow their foes and then cried out so quickly afterwards "Why have you led us out here to die?!"

In 1 Timothy 1:12-13 Paul says, " And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, 13 although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man;" God enabled Paul, He strengthened him, He empowered him, He gave him everything he would need for the ministry because Paul was faithful. He showed up lol God knew that through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad, the blessing and the hardships that Paul would endure.

I know that God can change me and though it might take more hardships to teach me to endure I welcome it to be counted among the faithful.

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