It's Not Easy

I, and some of my friends, have been through a lot of challenges, lately.

You, too?

Maybe it's just me, but I often get to thinking since I love and serve God as best I can life should treat me kindly. You know, perhaps I could get a free pass and have everything go smoothly.

Sigh. Not gonna happen.

I find many times when I'm going through something, God speaks to me when I'm doing my daily scripture writing.

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty down. I had had a slight fender-bender with a deer (!) and also was kind of smarting over a dressing-down I received over a mistake I'd made. I try so hard, yet somehow instead of moving forward, I find I slipped back a couple steps.

Can you relate?

Lunch hour came and I retreated to my "secret place." Every day, I eat my lunch in the church library. It's a great secret place. No one is in the building and I can shut the doors and breathe a sigh of relief. Nobody but me and God for the next hour. This is when I will do my scripture writing, pray, read - why I even will get some steps in walking round the library table. (Oh yeah, there is eating involved as well ...) 

On this day, my portion of scripture to copy was Matthew 7:13-20 ESV. This passage is about the path of life and choosing the broad gate or the narrow one. Verse 14 jumped out at me. 

"... the way is hard that leads to life ..."

Of course, I already knew God's children are not promised a rosy path. What we are promised is a traveling companion, a Savior who will never leave us or forsake us. He is more than enough to help us through each obstacle we come across.

Sometimes, I just need to be reminded. Yes, the way is hard, but I'm on the path that leads to an everlasting life filled with all manner of good things.

Yeah, the easy path is filled with lots of people. Because we all love easy.

When hard things come, I need to always come back to what I know. Romans 8:28. God only allows hard things to come to work out something better in my life.

It's all good.

~~~

I'm linking this post to the community at The Loft. Today is Pot Luck, the day we share whatever is on our hearts ...

October is fast upon us. Every October, I join in the 31 Day Challenge. This challenge is open to all bloggers and encourages us to post something daily for 31 days.

Write something. Every. Day.

Because I like to stretch myself, I will also do a challenge within a challenge - 31 days of 5 minute free writes. I will take a topic and run with it, writing furiously for 5 minutes.

Just to make it more interesting, I will take the topic list and relate everything to one of my favorite topics... the Journey.

The Journey is our way Home. There is nothing more important than making that final destination. Jesus paid my ticket there, but I have to walk it out. In October, I will be observing the things that happen while traveling the Journey.

Won't you join me? It all starts October 1 at 7 a.m. CST.