There are many who would have you believe that if you become
a Christian everything in your life will be easy. There are preachers who
preach that your life will be free from suffering, all things will go your way
and you will be materially prosperous once you give all control over to Christ.
That is a lie.
Nowhere in Scripture does Christ say, “Follow me and your life
will be all rainbows and butterflies.” What does He say? “If anyone would come
after me let him take up his cross and deny himself and follow me.” Take up his
cross? Deny himself? That doesn’t sound like rainbows and butterflies and you
would be right. It’s not. The Christian life is the hardest there is to live.
We should not only expect suffering but we are promised suffering. We are fish
swimming up stream constantly. There is no time to relax, no point at which we can
stop and catch our breath. We must be always on our guard because our flesh is
always ready to take advantage of our weakness and the devil is standing in the
shadows preparing snares for our feet.
My brothers and sisters, if life were
supposed to be easy God would have laid everything we could ever need or desire
right at our feet. But if this were the case, there would be no need to trust
Him, and no need to rely on His faithfulness. So we have trials. Sometimes God
might wait until the last minute to provide a need for you just to see if you’ll
still trust Him when your need is most dire. He tests us. And this is good!
Tests show us where we are at in our walk with God. Just like in school, they
help us track the progress we are making in a particular area of our life.
Sometimes, we may fail but the Lord remains faithful even then. So dear reader,
I exhort to put your trust in our Lord and His providence and to have faith
that He will always be faithful to us, His children. Only by casting our cares
on Him and trusting in Him for our every need will we have the true rest we all
long for. So come with me on a journey that will reveal the faithfulness of God
and His providential hand in our lives.