There are certain days when everything you do seems to go wrong, and no matter what you do, your life seems to be slipping through your fingers and shattering at your feet. There are some days when you have no hope, when life in general seems to have swallowed you, overwhelmed you, defeated you. When evil seems to have overcome good, when things seem pointless, and the only constants in life seem to be pain and misery. When you completely forget that this is only how things *seem,* and not at all how they really are. When the godlessness of the world reaches into your head and shakes you until you ache.
Today was one of those days.
On days like this, I usually just shake off these feelings by thinking of "happy things." For instance, rainbows and butterflies, or maybe chocolate or bright colors...things that make me "happy." Positive things that I enjoy about life, and tend to make me optimistic. Like, "Oh, life isn't ALL bad! There's butterflies!"
But today, that just didn't work.
And why did I expect it to? You can't battle evil with butterflies, I'm sorry to say. When the sickness and disease of the world makes you want to scream, why should chocolate appease the knots in your stomach? I'm afraid you need something far more potent, and far more good. And I don't mean good like pleasant. I'm talking about the hardcore sense of good. The righteous, fiery, wrath-of-God good. The "I will never leave you nor forsake you" good. The good that only comes from God, no matter where else we choose to look.
I really forget, far too often, that God is 100% faithful. He's not lying about always being there for me, He really IS. And so, SO often, I forget to look up to him and place my trust in him. All I have to do is look up at him in faith, and yet that's the only thing I don't do. It becomes so easy to listen to the Devil whispering in your ear, telling you that life is meaningless and everybody and everything is going to hell in a handbasket. He's cunning, and too often he deceives us into falling into despair and self pity instead of looking to Christ in hope. It's surprisingly easy to get absorbed in pessimistic thoughts once you let your perspective get skewed, and once you take your eyes off of Christ.
My life would be so much easier if I kept my eyes on the goal, on Christ, and stopped listening to the whispers. There's misery and pain in this world, but there's an immense amount of hope and joy and passion and love in it too. The people who ignore the pain and wear rose colored glasses are delusional, but the people who wear glasses stained with despair have it off far worse. They are the ones who look at the world and see nothing but pain, and feel nothing but pain. They're the cynics, who think the world is out to screw everybody and if it doesn't get you, it's a matter or pure chance. I cannot stand those people, but I realize that every day I spend in misery and listening to the whispers of Satan, I am staining my glasses with despair. So I'm throwing away my glasses, and praying for God to give me eyes to see.
-Esther
God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?” -Hebrews 13:5b-6
"Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shenikah, then we will see laughing children pulling cobras by their tails, and hawks and rabbits playing tag.”
― N.D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl
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