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So, you are a twenties-something believer who finds yourself
in a tiny church full of octogenarians and baby Christians, in a small
community beset by poverty of every kind.
This is probably not what you grew up thinking your life would be. You thought it might involve marriage, a
family, a cute home, a mature church full of like-minded believers who were
passionate about Jesus and his gospel. Not one of those items can be entirely checked off. Still, you know God wants you
here. He affirmed the decision in
a hundred different ways. He cared
for your soul so tenderly through multiple means. You can look back on good days in which it was effortless to
be grateful, to pursue ministry.
But the winter is closing in on your soul. Discomfort makes you wonder “Why am I here?” How easy to foster that seed of
discontentment by musing about the life depicted in your Pinterest boards. There might even be godly elements to
that Utopia, but it is not truly a godly life because you have become the
center of it, the definer of it.
You may sing “To God Be the Glory” but your heart’s cry is to declare
your will and desires paramount to his.
Here is what you need, soul: You need to hope in God, your exceeding joy –true and
unchanging. You need to remember again
that you have not been destined to wrath but have obtained salvation in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess.
5:9-10). Remember, soul, that
Christ gave up his heavenly throne to subject himself to the trials and
suffering of earth for you –and for
the glory of his Father. He did
not take in the best this world had to offer as some spoiled foreign dignitary. If he
would abandon such riches, what makes you think you are entitled to them? If Christ, who is the Head, gave up his
very life, why do you expect to fill yours with worldly trinkets? And that is what they are –
trinkets. It is not like the Father
is asking you to renounce all for something worse. No! He offers
the glory of eternal life in his presence! He offers “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”
in Christ (Eph. 1)! Take a moment
to soak that in. Think about what
it would be like for the Queen of England to offer you access to all her homes,
all her money, all her travel perks, all her V.I.P. priority –but you must
first spend fifty years promoting the Crown in a remote, Scottish town. You would happily consent because fifty
years of serving in a non-ideal place would seem a mere moment as you consider
the allure of all the royal grandeur to come. Soul! That is
what you have! And Christ bought it for you with his blood!
Jesus died to redeem your soul from the pit, to entitle you
to his divine inheritance, and to
strengthen you to persevere in day-to-day life. Even if that life isn’t your ideal, do not despair! Instead, remember that the wise Father ordained
a purpose of this season. Besides,
your ideal is only a shadow of what your heart really longs for and will have in eternity with Jesus.
“To God be the glory, great things he hath done! So loved he the world that he gave us his Son.” Praise the Lord, soul. Praise the Lord!
