How can it be OK?

It’s an odd situation we are in. On the surface everything has gone wrong. I lost my independence, mobility, ability to work and hadn’t even finished the work on the house we own. Yet I am at peace and joyful, I won’t say happy because happiness is based on what happens. Joy is not based on circumstances. You can feel joy when everything goes wrong. You can feel joy even in the hardest of circumstances. You can be at peace in the midst of difficulty. That’s what this blog is about a positive viewpoint on a difficult situation. How can things be OK, when everything is wrong?

The situation we are in doesn’t have to rule the way we feel. Feelings are deceptive things anyway, they so easily rule our hearts and minds. The one thing I have found that is unchanging and sure is my faith in God. I can hear all my non Christian readers turn off here and stop reading. But persevere a little longer. After all, I am saying this as someone who has truly tested this out. So maybe I have something worth hearing.

Faith is not religion, religion is not faith. There can be faith in religion but most often religion is just a blind obedience to a set of rules. A legalistic obeying of laws and statutes expecting a positive result. I am definitely not talking about that. You will not find peace and joy that way, because ultimately that is empty. I am talking about living faith.

What I have found to be true is that knowing a personal God, who also knows you and has a relationship with you transforms your life. Faith in God is life changing.

Forget harps, old men with white beards or dusty old books. I am talking about human relationship. We all understand that and feel it’s lack when it’s missing. God didn’t just create humanity and leave us to it. He saw the mess we were making and came into the world he made as a human being. Jesus was fully human and fully God. He wasn’t a blueprint of a future kind of human. He wasn’t a man pretending to be God. He wasn’t an angel. He wasn’t a prophet. He was the one and only, unique son of God. Fully God and fully human.

What on earth am I talking about!? God as a human. Am I mad, don’t I realise how crazy that sounds. Yes I do. There are many incredible and crazy sounding things in this universe that God created. Particles of matter that can be in two places at once. A force that cannot be seen or fully understood and yet holds everything together, gravity. Something that fills the gaps in the whole universe, dark matter. A perfect balance of push and pull at the big bang that prevents the universe collapsing. The more you look at the universe the more amazing and puzzling it is. I don’t have to be able to explain everything to know truth.

I know what love is, not because I can analyse it. I know what compassion is without pulling it to pieces. I can feel the benefit of mercy without fully understanding it. God loves us, God has compassion on us, God shows us mercy. We may not understand his reason or how he does it. We may not be able to explain how he became a man in Jesus. But we can know it is true. We can feel the transforming power of his love.

Before I realised that truth I was a loud voiced mocker. I see many such mockers now on facebook. We tend to mock two things, things we don’t understand and things we fear. Often our fear is that it’s true. That was the case for me. The more loudly I mocked the more it expressed my desperation. So I don’t feel anger at those who mock. I understand something of what they might be feeling. I know God loves them anyway.

Let me return to why I am at peace and I feel joy. It’s because I know God loves me. Jesus has made that known to me. But how you may well ask.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” And, “A rose by any other name will smell as sweet.”

Two really well known but equally untrue quotes. Words are very powerful things. Ask any psychologist, in fact ask yourself. What words said to you as a child still ring in your head as an adult.

Jesus is The Word of God he embodies God’s Word but he also spoke it. When we read God’s Word as recorded in the Bible and we receive Jesus the living Word into our lives then God’s transforms us. For some that transformation is instant and dramatic for others slower and less dramatic. But everyone who accepts Jesus Christ into their lives will be changed. The Word of God has the power to change our lives.

It is this change that means I can cope in the midst of disappointment, despair and seeming hopelessness. Because with Jesus there is hope and a future.

Some of you will know that in May 2015 (see video below) I had a miraculous healing, one that the doctors still can’t explain. For about two and a half years I could walk, and even do work on our current house. When in January 2018 that ended and my health again declined, I was devastated.

You may be aware that the most effective form of torture is to stop torturing someone, pretend to let them go and them re imprison them and start again. Doing this can completely destroy a persons spirit. I felt a bit like that. I had been free, able to walk and work, then it was taken away again in an instant. I reeled at the unfairness of it. I shouted at God about it. He is big enough to take that. When I had calmed down I felt I got an answer.

God had not taken anything from me. On the contrary He had given me a gift. Two and a half years of being able to walk again and being able to do normal things. A wonderful, brilliant gift. Far from being angry at the loss, I became thankful for what I’d enjoyed. I started to enjoy re living what I had done. Then I realised all the blessings God was giving me in this new season. The amazing carers God was bringing along for me to meet. The opportunities I had that previously I hadn’t enjoyed. Everything looked different and my joy and peace returned.

Whatever is thrown at us we can find peace and even joy. You might think it’s an empty joy based on nothing. But you’d be wrong. I have a depth of strength and durability to my faith that stands up to the rigours of life. Faith means you can put your weight on it and it can take your weight. My faith in God can bear the greatest testing. I can put all my weight on him. My faith is stronger than a reliance on material things. They come and go as I know all too well. God is unchanging, He is faithful and true.

To a lot of people Jesus Christ is a swear word. To me he is my way, my hope, and my life.

I am aware that I raise as many questions as I answer. One place that’s good to go and explore those questions is a local Alpha course. They are free to attend and run all over the world.

Find one near you https://alpha.org

Me able to walk in 2015 following a miracle.