I have been reading and reflecting on the life of David recently and one of the things I reflected on was how hard his life was.
I mean he had mad anointing, and God’s favor, but he was also chased by Saul most of his life, betrayed and lied to, been to the pits of depression, had his family kidnapped, had his closest friends betray him, etc…
Then I thought, “This is the guy I look up to?” That’s not exactly a life I’d choose into.
Well, I realized something about living a life as a Christian who follows God: I need to give up the idea that life will be easy.
The American dream is meant to avoid every and any sense of difficulty. But that is the life that prescribed and predicted in the Bible.
I need to give up that idea… I need to give up the idea that family life will be easy, that my marriage will be perfect, that ministry will be a breeze, that everyone will respect and like me, that I won’t make mistakes.
I need to give up the idea that I won’t stumble and fall, that others won’t let me down. I need to give up all of that, because it is surely not the life modeled by any person who succeeded in the Bible.
But perhaps Jesus summed it up best when he said this before he suffered on the cross: “Not my will be done, but Yours be done.”
The ease of life is not guaranteed, and it is most certainly beyond my control. But I set my heart, like Jesus, to faithfulness. I set my heart on the task and the race that God has given me to run.
And most of all, I set my heart on One Thing–knowing Jesus, the well from which my joy fills, both in life’s greatest triumphs and in life’s worst miseries.
