I Guess This is My Life Now

I Guess This is My Life Now

When I am feeling uncomfortable, I find it difficult to remember how it felt to be
comfortable. Perhaps some examples from my own life will sound familiar to you.
By day three of a head cold, I can no longer remember what it feels like to breathe
through my nose. At this point, I am tempted to think, “I’m sure it was nice
breathing through my nose, but I guess this is my life now.” When I am eating
tortilla chips or popcorn, something gets stuck among my teeth and gums and no
matter how skilled I am with toothpick or floss – it holds fast. The ache is still
there the next day and again I think to myself, “Eating was fun while it lasted, but
now every bite hurts. I guess this is my life now!” By this point in my life, I’ve
experienced this phenomenon time and time again, so I ought to know that these
discomforts don’t last forever; but in the moment, it feels quite permanent. “I
guess this is my life now.”
I have experienced the same phenomenon in my spiritual life. Weeks full of
discouragement can go by. Whether it is caused by my friends, by my community,
or by my own attitude, I sense the same idea creeping in – “I guess this is my life
now.” A month into a breakneck schedule of work, travel, activities, and evening
plans, I begin to wonder what life must have been like when I had time to pray,
meditate on God’s Word, and invest in my family. “Time must have been nice
while I had it, but I guess this is my life now.” As my head hangs in shame after I
became impatient or angry for the fifth (or fiftieth) time that day, a heavy fog
settles in my mind, saying “I never will escape this sin. I guess this is my life
now.”
But in saying this, I have accepted a lie. Yes, we experience troughs and valleys in
all kinds of areas; but this does not mean we have to stay there! We are not meant
to “settle in” to the valleys. When we find ourselves in a valley, we are meant to
appeal to God for the path back up the mountain! When we are trapped in sin, we
can confess it to God, confident that he is faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9). When
we are distracted, we can heed the instruction given to the church in Ephesus:
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you
did at first” (Revelation 2:5). When we are discouraged, we can find rest and hope
in God because his steadfast love never ceases, and he is our portion
(Lamentations 3:22-24)!
I do not deny the difficulty of life’s valleys, nor do I want to downplay just how
“stuck” we can feel in the moment. However, when we find ourselves there, we
must fight the urge to shrug our shoulders and say, “I guess this is my life now.”
Imagine how different the Luke 15 story of the Prodigal Son would be if – when
he was at his lowest, sitting with the pigs and wishing he could eat their food – he
had said, “I guess this is my life now.” Instead, we see he remembered the one
person who can save him from the wretched situation he had brought upon
himself – his father.
Friend, whether you’re discouraged, distracted, or trapped in sin, look to your
Father. Through Jesus, he continually extends his hand to welcome you, forgive
you, and redeem you for his work. This is your life now.
- Noah Diestelkamp

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The Case for Jesus’ Resurrection

There is abundant evidence to support the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection
recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, people sometimes ask if
their testimony would stand the tests used to examine evidence in a courtroom.
Consider the following:
Simon Greenleaf was a professor at Harvard University and one of the founders
of its prestigious Law School. His three-volume text, A Treatise on the Law of
Evidence (1842), is considered a classic of American jurisprudence.
In 1846 he wrote another noteworthy book entitled The Testimony of the
Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of
Justice.
After a careful investigation of the four gospels, Greenleaf summarized his
conclusion:
The foundation of our belief is a basis of fact - the fact of the birth,
ministry, miracles, death, resurrection by the Evangelists as having
actually occurred, within their own personal knowledge it was
therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the
truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead.
Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful
manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, reviling,
bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths.
Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they
endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing.
They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their
faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they
asserted. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in
affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen
from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they
knew any other fact.



Tears are not a sign of weakness - they are the
display of the strength of inner compassion.

_____

Keeping house is like stringing beads with
no knot at the end of the string.

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