I sit here this morning with tears rolling down my face as I think on the “even if’s” of life… I have so many things rambling on in my brain this morning and bouncing around in my heart and weighing on my soul… how thankful I am for my God who does not leave us to carry all our burdens alone.

This life is so very hard sometimes.

We make mistakes that we can’t take back no matter how hard we try… and even though forgiveness comes and God redeems those mistakes and uses them to bring glory to the kingdom of God and testify to His amazing grace… the memories remain and we have to choose, sometimes daily, to forsake those and move forward in faith.

We have things that are out of our control that come and t-bone us out of no where and almost destroy us and break all our bones and leave us gasping for every breathe and hanging on a thread of hope… and even though our life is spared our life is changed forever. We may have to live with physical pain, sometimes daily, for the rest of our life and we have to choose to give thanks for the pain because the pain testifies to the truth that we are indeed still alive.

We live under the turmoil of hurt and walk in the shadow of condemnation that may even come from places that are are supposed to be love and comfort. We feel the burden of oppression and look for the light and find it… and then its darkness again… and we wonder why we can’t find a safe place… and even if that safe place is found we discover that the hurt and turmoil show back up, almost playing hide and seek with us, and even if we choose to jump out and scream “I am not hiding anymore“, the hurt sometimes remains… and we have to choose to trust that God is sovereign and somehow He has a work to do in us and He is using this and in His hands all works for glory and good.

We receive news that a battle we have been fighting for years just has made a surge on us like the USA military on the beaches of Normandy and all we know to do is just grab our weapons of warfare and run head on and strong into the fight knowing that our life, this mission, this fight, this battle will be remembered by those who come behind us for generations to come… and it will be honored.

We live this life and the mistakes, pains, sufferings, and battles of life can seem relentless… and they are… and if we try to think of them as “this is how it is going to be forever, for the rest of my life” we will crumble under the weight of them.

I have learned in my almost 36 years of life, and I praise God that those last 10 have been in Him, I have learned that we can’t live in the unknown future of tomorrow.

WE CAN ONLY LIVE IN TODAY.

Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.” It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death. So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, “A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man.” 

Judges 16:15-17

Issues of life come upon us daily… they come and they press on us… and they annoy our soul to death… and they come and finally we tell, we express, we shout out what is in our hearts…

What will come out of our hearts?

Will we speak as Job’s wife spoke “Curse God and die…”

Will we speak as Job did “Though He slay me yet will I praise Him...”

Will we run from Christ?

As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore

John 6:66 

Or will we run to Him because we realize we have no where else to go to find help, hope, life?

Jesus never asked us to live in tomorrow. He actually commanded us not to.

So do not worry about tomorrow; 

for tomorrow will care for itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:34

At least eight times in the Scriptures we are commanded “do not worry“

We are commanded to not worry about tomorrow, to not worry about our life, to not worry about our future, to not worry… we are commanded to remember.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden,

The God who is our salvation.

Psalm 68:19

We are to remember that we are His workmanship, created in Christ, prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10). He has a plan, a purpose, and He has the power to carry it out… we may not understand today… but one day we will see and we will know and we will praise Him and thank Him for our sufferings… we will cry out in overwhelming joy that the “even ifs” did not deter us, destroy us, derail us, or lead us to demean, defy, or denounce Him our Savior, our Lord, our King.

We will see the mighty result of our sufferings and how we were perfected in them and how many came to know Christ as they watched us walk in and through them. I have learned that facing suffering head on. Walking by faith. Walking in the knowledge that God is sovereign. Walking in the sheer truth that my life is hidden with Christ in God and Christ is in me (Colossians 1:27, 3:3). And if I am hidden with Christ in God then nothing can get to me unless it has first passed through Him and if He has allowed it through it has a purpose in Christ and for Christ for the glory of Christ.