Are you discouraged and feel like giving up? Do you feel you’re alone and there is no hope? Have you experienced many hardships? Are you wondering why we suffer all our lives? Why would God cause or allow suffering? Does it feel like the horrors of life will never end? Or that you will never be happy?
When you were saved were you misled to believe that life would get better now that you have Jesus in your life? Maybe it actually feels like life got harder? Are you wondering if there is any help and if there is, where does it come from?
All of these questions are important ones that many of us have had. Because in life people are like a flag, floating along smoothly, thinking all is going well. But the winds are blowing at us through out our lives. Sometimes it blows just a little. For many it blows so little that it seems like the wind is not tearing at the fabric of our life or wearing us out. But continuous years of the wind blowing a flag, will still cause wear and tear on it. Just as the flag, continuous winds of life blowing at us will cause wear and tear to us. It just takes much longer this way, before we see that something has torn and things are not right.
There are some folks that have never had the easy gentle winds of life. As far back as they can remember, even as children, the wind has blown hard and strong, never letting up on them. Their whole life has been twisted about by the wind, torn and shredded. Maybe this has been your life? You look back and don’t remember ever feeling like you were useful, important, cared for, or loved.
You see, everyone has had pain of some sort that affects their lives. Pain and sorrow does not pick, choose or discriminate against whether we are young or old, male or female, rich or poor, or even what nationality we are. It does not even matter if you are a Christian or not. Just being alive in this world makes us all eligible to experience pain, agony and sadness.
Sherry has experienced pretty much anything a person can experience on this earth. She was once told that she could write a hit soap opera by just using her life hardships and mistakes. Like many of you her life has not been perfect. She has experienced life as a Jehovah’s Witness, death of immediate family members, her mother disowning her, her mother experiencing Alzheimer’s, fear, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, divorce and even anorexia which turned the opposite way and became gluttony.
After becoming a Christian, life was still hard. Even today the winds of life are still blowing and shredding her life. But there is one big difference, because she now has the Holy Spirit to guide her and the bible to teach her how to handle life.
It is very sad, that many Christians are not experiencing joy and happiness in their lives. They are miserable and unhappy. They go through all the motions of what they have learned to do, of how they are to act, but they still have not found the joy and peace from the Lord. But the Lord clearly shows us in the bible how to find His joy, happiness and peace.
Gods’ word the bible was designed by God to instruct us in all aspects of our life. Did you hear me, ALL aspects of our life? It is so full of instruction, wisdom and life for a Christian that one scripture can apply to many aspects of our life.
Learn that the Lord not only saves and forgive us, but He changes our lives. And this is a process that is not done over night or in a few months. We will be in this process until we either die and meet Christ or until Christ returns and takes us all to heaven. We will never be able to be perfect on this earth. We will not be sinless on this earth. We will all suffer and have hardships in this sinful world. Learn that you have a Father in heaven that loves you and cares for you. You need to know that there is a way to have His peace even in the midst of the blowing, battering winds of life. He has made us promises that He will keep! Not only as a Christian do we have the future in heaven to look to, but we can find joy and happiness on this side of heaven. This joy and happiness is available for us all the time, even when we are right in the middle of the hard winds of life that are blowing at the very fabric of our souls.
The world is full of many choices, but it all comes down to us making the right choices. This is a very simple thing we must do. Because there is one way, only one! There is one person, only one! You can not find true joy and happiness on your own. You must seek, look to, listen to, worship and choose to obey the one and only, Jesus Christ.