Are you weary? Anxious? Overwhelmed with repeated disappointments? Do you just want to crawl into the corner of self-pity and slump there?
Well there’s a cheery start to a blog if ever there was one. But it’s where I am in life at the moment, and possibly where you are. So let’s attempt to get ourselves out of this pit together. We can’t do it alone, so where do we begin?
Recognising the fact that we are not alone in this is a good start. There are many other folks who are potentially feeling exactly the same or even worse. Life can be hard repeatedly knocking us back down, and life can be incredibly disappointing for any number of reasons. That needs to be acknowledged. It also needs to be accepted that there are no easy answers, no quick escape routes. Life is a journey of downs as well as ups. Sliding downwards can happen before we know it. Climbing up is hard work.
We are not alone on that climb. Alongside our fellow travellers, there is another Helper. “He knows the way that I take,” said Job in the Old Testament of the Bible, “when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”. The trials of Job were almost beyond belief – loss of an extensive livelihood, loss of his sons and daughters, all ten of them. Then a dreadful painful skin disease was added to the mix. Even his wife told him to “Curse God and die” and put an end to his misery. But he didn’t. Job did not understand what was going on nor why, but he put his trust firmly in God, waiting on Him to bring Job through. And God did.
Compare that with Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. Which by the way was on our behalf, so that we as people who repeatedly mess up, do wrong and fail could come into a redeeming relationship with a Holy God, a Father who whatever our circumstance loves us and wants the best for us.
This gives meaning to our challenges. There is a purpose behind the repeated disappointments, to whatever fuels our anxiety or weariness. Perhaps it is a test of our faith. Perhaps it is to be a witness of faith to others around us. The challenge for us lies in committing to trust God through it. Never easy in hard circumstances, but it is part of the climb up.
It can sound glib to say “He’s only a prayer away”. Yet it is true. God our Father is near at hand, never out of earshot, although He may take a while to answer by our measurement. He formed us and has guided us this far, whether we acknowledge that or not, and He knows all our strengths and failings. He is with us every step of the way. Our first step out of the mire of self-pity is to look away from ‘me’ and look to Him; to lift our focus from the chaos and challenges, and look to Him for help. This is the way forward.
That help can come from supportive friends and family who do not allow us to wallow, but sensitively refocus our thinking. It can come from being out in the fresh air enjoying the beauties of nature, by eating well and getting enough sleep. Most significantly it comes from passages in the Bible that speak into our situation and lift us to consider “Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), and to recalibrate our thinking in the light of His sufferings.
So let us make that often supreme effort to look away from the challenge, however overwhelming, and look to the Challenge Giver. Life is a race, sometimes a flat straight run, sometimes over hurdles or up mountains.
We do not run alone.
