Hit A Wall

Have you ever had those days where you just feel like you hit a wall? I feel exhausted, and beat up right now. It is not because I had "The Well" last night and got up early, thats not it. Honestly it is because of sin and darkness that I see in the lives of those I love. I am just in a valley right now where I am fully aware of how messed up this world is and how lives around me are broken and hurting.

How do I get out of this valley? Is it to just fool myself with "positive" thinking like Oprah tells me? Do I just pull up my bootstraps and work harder to make lives less broken? Do I just ignore it all? None of these work, none of these provide a sufficient answer to the reality of pain and sadness that seem to surround me. I need something real, I need something that does not ebb and flow with how I feel and what my reality is at any moment, that all changes. I need something that does not change!!

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

As I type this I am not "feeling" like my situation is completely better where all pain is gone and so forth. What I do feel though is security that even though I am in this valley, I have a hope that is real, and does not change. My hope in Jesus is unshakable because it has nothing to do with what I need to do, or what i have to do to change things. It is about what someone else has done, namely Jesus Christ. The Creator of the Universe the Father in Heaven sent His Son, Jesus, to save, messy, broken lives, to redeem us from our crap and mess we love to dwell in. We did nothing to deserve this, we loved the mess we were in, we had no want to be with God, we were self deceived and loved it! In spite of this Jesus died for us, took our punishment for our mess, then He rose from the dead to show that He was God and that the power of sin in our lives has been broken. This fact does not change with my feelings, or my circumstances, this fact is how I know God is loving, good and cares deeply about me. This fact will get me through today!

Tim Bradley one of our elders has encouraged us as a staff to constantly be meditating on Psalm 130 all day, I encourage you to do the same:

130:1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

Taken from ESV Online