It’s not easy

As I was getting ready this morning I was thinking of my daily choice to follow Jesus. Specifically I was contemplating of how someone, who may be struggling at this moment, may look at me and think “You make it look easy” or “It’s easy for you because your aren’t facing what I am right now”.

It’s not easy. It is something I do every day and I feel it when I don’t do it. When I don’t “Seek first the kingdom”, it is easy to fall back into the world.

It may look easy and it may look like I don’t have struggles. That is because, to someone looking in, you are seeing this season of my life. You aren’t seeing the times I struggled against following God’s path for my life. The times the “F-Bomb” flowed out of me like it was just any old adjective. The times I was depressed and not wanting to face the world. The times I was full of anger rather than forgiveness for those who hurt me. You aren’t seeing me broken and longing to be loved.

You are seeing a person broken who reached out to Jesus in surrender. Who cried out, “I can’t do this on my own. I will mess it all up”. Who has chosen every day to let God’s Holy Spirit lead the way. That is not easy. It is a daily dying to the “self of this world”. It is trusting what I cannot see. It is being obedient even when I may not understand the “why”. It is knowing that this is a season and there may come another season where life isn’t so “rosy” or seemingly great. I will face struggles, BUT GOD will never leave me.

Jesus tells us in Luke 9;23-26, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

Yes, I may not be facing huge crisis obstacles in life in this season. Still, I must chose daily to take up my cross and follow Jesus. That is how I get through the good, the bad, and the ugly of this world. It is not easy. Remember as Christ followers we are in this world, but not of it.

My encouragement to you today is that, no matter what season of life you may be in, turn to God and His Word. He has not left you, forsaken you, abandoned you, or stopped loving you. He never will.