Is Christianity a Life of Ease?

There is a certain segment today in Christianity that says that if you believe in Jesus, you will be healthy, wealthy, and wise. All your problems will be solved. You will be rolling in cash by just claiming it in Jesus name and healed of anything from a headache to catastrophic disease, just by speaking it so. Life will be a one way ticket to easy street. If you happen to be struggling with a trial, have deep inner emotional struggles, or are suffering in some way, well, you just do not have enough faith. Or, according to a TV preacher, perhaps you need to "sow a seed" of cash in his or her coffers to reap these benefits..

This is completely opposite the Scriptures. There we are promised that not only will we have trials, but sufferings of some kind or another. In fact, it is the primary way God uses to reduce our own tenacious hold on our lives to learn to trust in Him alone. God takes our defeats, our pain, and our deepest trials and makes something beautiful out of them. What He does in them and through them is far more valuable than the baubles and trinkets of life. Instead of the pipe dream of a life of ease, we find joy and the completion of the deepest yearnings of a heart that cries out for our God. It is said that happiness depends on the convenience of our circumstance, while joy is regardless of circumstance and transcends the worst of them.

God does not want us to have so much that we forget Him, or come to believe we do not need Him. How many societies have spiraled downward this way? This is not because God sentimentally wants us to feel we need Him. Rather, we are created that way. A flower can not live without the sun and water. In the same way, we need the Son and the water of true life to truly live. Abundant life is a promise even in the midst of the greatest obstacles of life.

Life is hard; it gets tough, to say the least. Yet God is mighty to save, to keep, and to care for us though it all. As we love Him who first loved us in Christ, we would have it no other way. He is the joy of our heart, what else we strive for can compare?

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18.

Confronting Stress and Anxiety With Truth

There are many trials in life, sometimes daily. Often we confront them in our own exertion alone. We may not fully realize how much extreme effort we are putting in, as anxiety, stress, and what you might call "freaking out" may actually be a kind of work in itself to us. Somehow we feel it will effect an outcome of some kind. In this, our circumstances are held closely to our chests, without considering healthier ways of dealing with them. The energy it produces, even though harmful to our emotions and even our health, in our minds is a valid way of striving and trying to cope. It becomes part of the process of handling life.

In contrast, when we come to God first in our need, when we lay our agitated hearts before Him, we confront life with truth. We cry out for the whirlwind to stop and for Him to be our peace. Peace is sorely missed today - in the world, in our hearts, our minds, and in our relationships. When we give up on the notion of self sufficiency and trust in a gracious God in Christ Jesus to be our enabling and contentment, then we become free. I use the word enable deliberately, as ever I come to see that help alone from God is not what I need. I need Him to enable me Himself entirely, with me out of the way. Grace is not a one time event only when we are saved; it is God's relationship to us daily, moment by moment.

I find that relearning and renewing all my own past unhealthy ways of dealing with life or trials is crucial as I seek total trust in a God who tenderly loves me. It is a process I receive, not one that is manufactured out of self improvement. I am filled with His freely offered grace, through the trials He allows me to be faced with. He allows them because He is a sure trust. More sure than anything we so rely on today.

Faith is only as good as the object it is placed in. In our Father, in His blessed Son our Redeemer, what a sure trust we have. We serve a beautiful God who reigns and has each breath we take in His care.

As someone who has life long suffered from anxiety attacks and social anxiety, there are days when I need to remind myself of these truths over and over. I have a choice to let the anxiety and mental duress define the truth for me, or the character and work of God, even as my emotions seek to control the moment while I seek Him. It seems a precarious balance at times, were it not for God's grace. Praise God for His tender mercy in our Lord.

Artwork: © Jeffrey M Green. "Through the Trees", 16 x 20", colored pencils.

Valleys

I do not post about this part of my life often. I have struggled with anxiety issues for most of my life. Though God has healed me of so much and my life is now completely different in many ways - there are times that my anxiety kind of takes over. Not to destroy any longer, it is more like an inner storm. Anxiety attacks not only arrest ones attention and bring clouds of their own, they can leave you feeling like you are collapsing. Many who suffer from this feel like they are going to die or go crazy. Neither will happen in God’s care, I know. Yet, the turmoil is not something that easily lifts. The more progressive my life goes toward goals, the more this inner weakness is provoked.

I have chosen this self portrait as a companion to this writing as it was created during another period of turmoil in my life, some years ago. It was a time of change, confusion, the end of things and new beginnings full of vulnerability and anxiety.

God has not called me to be comfortable, so to speak. I must admit at times I might wish a period of that, yet that is not where I will grow. Such a desperate monster will not die easily in me - perhaps never fully. I am so glad I have a Savior who lived, felt, and faced the things we do. A Savior who is powerful and brings transformation, even as all seems inward defeat. It is certainly true that momentary valleys can seem like they will never go away when it is all we allow ourselves to see.

One of the biggest lies of the enemy, when we are brought low, is that our struggles are just not worthy of God’s attention. God loves real people in real life, and gave a Savior for us in our deepest needs. Life in Christ is not lived in stained glass scenes of victories that we can not relate to, but in the valleys of pain, trial, and our own personal obstacles. When we feel alone, He is there.

Lord, all my desire is before You;
And my sighing is not hidden from You. Psalm 38:9

My Strength Comes from the Lord.

Why have a quote focusing on strength, with an art piece that is so infused with peace and tranquility? Why not instead feature soaring mountains, a sword, or bursting rays through clouds? Though it is certainly true we can seek and experience God's enabling aid during times of high emotion, it is in the quiet moments when we come away from the world, that we find a transforming strength. As we regularly look to our Father in prayer and reading the Scriptures, we are fed with His light. In all our troubles we find rest to enjoy, not only in those moments of refreshing, but to build us up for battles ahead.

Mankind has created a great deal of stress. The world is full of it. From events around us, sin, the mad pace of today, and conflict - or from our own churning hearts full of anxieties, there is much that robs us of peace. The Author of peace, the giver of life in the midst of pain, awaits for us to lay it all at the foot of the cross and listen to His truth, above all the commotion.

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful". John 14:27.

Life is Full of Trials

Life is full of trials. Some of them are very painful. They can be without, from events or circumstances around us, or within us with things we struggle with. Much of the time God may not remove these things – though there are times He may. It is what God does with them while He does not remove them that is significant. 

In each circumstance, by lifting them up to our Savior, God uses trials to draw us closer to Him. We find that God is not the God of the small, the maybe, the almost, or the nearly. He is a God of overcoming power. For the latter, we may sometimes get confused because we think this needs to conform to what we think victory, healing, or help should look like. Our views here may be skewed by many things. Yet, we know and are promised, that for His children all things work together for good. In our darkest hour we can lean on the enabling strength of a mighty, yet loving, Father.

In the end we are awed by the beauty of God and the personal grace of His love in Christ. We can have this love even when we fail, with the hope that though that may happen again and yet again, God will not leave us this way. We do not have to wait until the trial passes or until we finally climb out of the deep valley of our own weakness to rest in this love. We can do that right now. It is as near as a desperate prayer or the reading of His Word. It is as near as God’s tender grace in Christ, the defining truth of our relationship with Him.

Artwork: © Jeffrey M Green. "Shadows On the Moss", 8" x 10", pastels.

Looking to the Coming Year with Apprehension?

"Shadows, Water, and Light", 16 x 20", colored pencils.

The coming year is bringing rejoicing - or at least revelry - to many. Do you instead look to the coming year with apprehension and anxiety? Are there things you are burdened  with?

Having struggled with anxiety my whole life, no less now that I am no longer shut away from the world, it helps me to remember that the God we read of in Scripture is still the same God today. He is a God of power, mercy, and renewed grace each day. In the modern era we can sometimes so cloud our reasoning with science and every presumption that we miss the fact that God is a God of awesome power.

This does not mean our trials will be dealt with instantly like magic, or that we will be awash in cash like the TV preachers tell us - if we first give it to them. The victories we see in a few sentences in Scripture are often filled with many years of struggle between. Those who lived then are much like us today, they had the same trials, the same fears, the same weaknesses and sin.

God does have a purpose for suffering. Without it we can not learn to trust Him alone. One might even say, that if in the midst of our pain we do not seek Him, or have not received His Son, our trials are ultimately wasted in the sense that it could of been a tool to open up the beauty of God for us. Though no one welcomes hardship, the closer we are to Him, the more the heart knows a joy that transcends.

Whatever I am facing today, I know my God is my joy, my contentment, my strength when all else fails. I know that any so called strength of my own should and will fail. I must completely get out of the way. In the grace of Christ, a mighty God in unapproachable light is brought tenderly near in intimacy.

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” Jeremiah 32:27.

Artwork: © Jeffrey M Green. "Shadows, Water, and Light", 16 x 20", colored pencils.

Prayer

In our modern age, we think we can handle most anything. Prayer is usually a formal thing to be religious, a last resort in desperation, or a “just in case” thing. How often do we pray knowing we are heard, having faith that praying to God is a very profound thing?

God is in control of every detail of our lives in Christ. It is true that He does not need our help by any means. He does not need our input for our problems, as He knows what we will say before we even ask and they are in His own hands to work for good. Yet, at the same time, He does require us to pray. Prayer is crucial to our relationship with Him and in our care for those around us. In His grace and love He allows us the tremendous privilege to pray for others, He uses prayer in our own lives to shape us. And yes, He answers our prayers.

Prayer is a wonderful thing of first resort. We talk to, we petition, we plead in our inner painful groaning to the One we love. Through His divine grace He grants us a beautifully privileged role in His work. Not privilege in the world’s sense, that of self importance - but one of His own grace toward us that touches every detail of our lives with the utmost love and tender care. God’s wonderful grace envelopes prayer, from the first time we pray that special prayer to accept Christ, to our day to day lives, and those we lift up to Him in concern.

There are many practical things you can do to help someone. Yet, foremost, the most caring thing we can do is to pray for someone. Because God hears, He listens, and He does answer in His time and purposes.

You can not read the pages of Scripture long before you realize that God hears the prayers of the needy, the downtrodden, the poor, the desperate, those mourning, those suffering, and those repenting in sorrow for sin. Hear hears our pleas. As Christ is the bridge to God over all of our sin, the embodiment of our redemption, and the sole connection with our loving Father, it is why we pray in Jesus name.

Artwork: © Jeffrey M Green. "Carole, Prayer Series I", 16 x 20", colored pencils.