Letting the Faith of Others Carry you in the Struggle

 A couple days ago, I got a message asking why I hadn't posted anything here in just over a month. I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realize it had been that long.

If I look at the notebook where I start most of my posts, I can see a lot of started and unfinished posts. Things I started to write, but had no idea how to finish or turn into something I would share. Thoughts about things that I can't yet get to a conclusion of any kind.

The last post I wrote and shared here challenged me as I read it. I was writing about getting through when you don't think you can. About what we need to do.

I talked about our need to invite community into our struggle. To have people we can be honest with about where we're at. It was easy to write that, but the truth is, it was harder to live that out. I wrote those words for others, not even realizing how much I would struggle to do exactly that in the last few weeks.

It wasn't until I completely reached the end of myself that I realized just how important it is to invite people into our struggle. It's not just a good thing to talk about. It's something we need to actually do. It wasn't until I actually reached out to friends and let them into my struggle that things began to change. My faith may be weak right now, but that's what community is for. We carry each other when someone is struggling. We carry them to Jesus.

When the whole premise of what you've written about for years is living as Christ's disciple and what that looks like practically, when things get hard, it's hard to write about it. But maybe honesty about things is the best place to start writing again.

I don't know what my writing will look like in the coming weeks. I don't know if there will be more that make its way to here. Or if it will continue to be unfinished ideas that don't make it here.

But can I encourage you with this: No matter where you're at spiritually, keep holding on. Keep sharing honestly with people in your life. When you're faith is struggling, ask the people around you to pray for you. Let their faith carry you when yours is weak.

When You're Not Sure if You Can Get Through It

 How do we get through hard times? 

How do we make it when it just seems like too much?

I know God doesn't promise an easy, trouble-free life, but sometimes it just doesn't feel possible to get through all that's going on at one time. And, if I'm honest, in those times, I wonder how I'm supposed to get through.

I share a few thoughts about this on my Facebook feed on Sunday night. I wasn't sure where it would go when I started writing it, or what the response would be when I posted it. But, what I discovered, is that I'm not the only one wrestling with this right now. So, I figured that after almost a month of no posts here, something on this topic would be a good way to start again.

I haven't posted here because I'm in the place I'm talking about and I haven't felt like I had anything to write about because of it. But, then I remember why I started this blog in the first place. Not because I intended to write about things where I had it all figured out, but to encourage others in their walks with God whatever it looked like. So maybe writing from a place of struggle is what I should do.

How do we get through hard times?

How do we make it when it just seems like too much?

I've been in the church long enough to know what the answer should be.

Cling to Jesus.

Read your Bible. Pray. 

All good things. But, sometimes that doesn't feel like enough. When reading the Bible doesn't connect and your prayers feel like they're bouncing off the ceiling, the "right" answer, the church answer, doesn't feel like enough.

So, what do we do then?

First, I think we need to be willing to admit it. Just be honest and say that we're struggling. To ourselves, and hopefully to trusted friends too. There's something about saying it or writing it down.

Then, we need to reach out. Those trusted friends. Our church community. The people we do life with. We need them. They're the people God has given us to help us through the times we don't know if we can get through it.

And, probably the hardest part, we need to keep reading our Bibles, keep praying, keep being a part of church. It might not feel like something we want to do right now. It might be the last thing we want to fill our time with. But, keeping on will make a difference in the long run. It may be a discipline right now, but the day will come when it becomes a delight to do those things again.

Growing Through Challenge or Yearning for "Normal"

 "I'm just waiting for things to go back to normal."

"Can we ever go back to normal."

"I wish things were normal again."

You've probably though, or even said, those words or something like them in the last five months. You're probably heard them from other many times.

We're living in a world that's been turned upside-down by something we can't even see. Our normal has been taken away. Everything feels strange.

And we're struggling with that.

I know I am. All I want to do is go to a gathering with friends and give them all long hugs. And, for someone who doesn't usually often struggles in large group gatherings and doesn't just hug everyone, that says a lot. If I'm feeling this way, I know lots of others are too.

We just want normal back.

We talk about a new normal. About what it might look like. What it might mean. How we can manage.

But it's not what we really want.

When you get beneath it all, we're longing for normal. For how things used to be.

Before I go on, let me be clear on one thing: I'm not here to debate whether we have a new normal. I'm not going to debate the choices made or not made. While our current reality has prompted some of the thoughts in this post, I'm not writing about opinions on it. You can agree or disagree, but this is not the place to debate that. I will delete all comments along those lines without notice or comment from me.

Whatever happens, there is one thing we know, this has changed and will continue to change us all. Just as any difficult time will do. When we walk through something hard, we will come out of it different than we were when we entered in.

I've been reading Beth Moore's newest book Chasing Vines and working on the study that goes with it. A couple days ago, I read a chapter that challenged me on how hard times change us. In the book, Beth writes:

"When we're going through a difficult season, wouldn't the best news of all be that life would simply go back to normal someday? When the framework of our daily existence gets completely dismantled and the landscape around us grows increasingly unreliable, our strongest longing is seldom prosperity. What we yearn for is normalcy. We don't tend to ask for the moon when we've lost all we've known. We just want some semblance of our old lives back.

The hard truth is, there's no real going back. But once we get up again, there can be a going forward. In His faithfulness, God sees to it what we thought was the end isn't the end at all. And eventually, perhaps not terribly long after, we realize we transitioned into a new normal."

We can't go back to what was normal before because what we've walked through has changed us. We're not the same person, so even the same things will be different because we've changed.

The danger for us comes when we become so focused on getting back to "normal" we miss God's new in our lives. When we do this, we stop producing any fruit for God's kingdom in our lives.

A little later in the same chapter, Beth writes:

"But in time, finding fruitfulness again will make more difference than you can imagine. If we can't have our treasured yesterday back, at least tomorrow can matter. The wonder of fruit bearing is that something meaningful can come from the meanest of seasons. What we endured matters."

If we allow God to work through our hard times, He will produce something beautiful in our lives. That is always His plan. But, we can't hold onto and keep looking for what once was.

So, how do we do this? How do we move through hard seasons and allow God to bring something beautiful out of them?

In the Bible study that goes along with the book, Beth writes:

"It is human nature to focus on what has changed in our lives and to long for what we once had. But when we're faced with the pain and anxiety of loss and change, perhaps we should fix our minds on what remains the same in our lives. God is constant even when our circumstances are not."

We get through and begin to live the new life God has for us by fixing our eyes on Him. He doesn't change no matter our circumstances.

So, where are your eyes fixed right now?

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:18

"Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." - Hebrews 12:1-2