Life is Hard...and that's ok.
I'm a recovering idealist. It has taken a while to allow myself the freedom to live in reality. I was pondering Psalm 23 the other day in a different kind of way. That psalm is read at funerals and celebrated for the hope it brings when things are tough. I am wondering if David was making an observation about life itself.
There is this author, Phillip Keller. He was a British shepherd man of God. Yes, that means he was a true shepherd of sheep and he was a man of God. He wrote about wonderful words about Jesus the Shepherd of the human race and the similarities between the sheep and our human existence. One thing that really stood out was the cycle of life that transpired in one year for the herd. This cycle was very similar to the cycle David writes about in Psalm 23.
I know that it is our tendency to pull apart verses and focus on one more than another, but imagine taking apart a masterpiece painting; literally cutting that one section out and just appreciating it by itself. You would have made yourself the artist and stopped listening to the voice of the one who painted who was trying to say something to you. In Psalm 23, it is the whole that is powerful. It is the entire cycle. It is wonderful luxury of the care of the Great Shepherd, Yeshua, who takes us to beautiful moments. But it is also the dark days of death, the days of war and attack by enemies. These also are days, Yeshua, the Great Shepherd, is there. This is reality. We strive to no end to keep the bad days away and never realize that bad days are part of life. They are hard...and that's ok because that is the journey of life. It is a cycle of spring through winter, birth to death. It is joy and grief. This journey is where the exhibition of His concern is revealed.
I'm enjoying Josh Garrells the last year or so. He wrote a song for 2008's "Jacaranda" album entitled, Season of Rain. Here is the opening verse...
Praise the Lord, when it’s all gone wrong Everything fades but our love shines on.
Embrace it. It's life. The laws of thermodynamics confirm it. Everything moves to greater decay. All things, everywhere. This is life as God designed it. And we precious ones who shake our fist at him for his lack of mercy to make life "better" are miserable indeed. We fail to realize that in the hardness of life, when we finally realize that all things go to dust, and we have expended every last effort to repel that fact from our midst, that there is this grand irony. There is only one thing with longevity and is is what David is celebrating for eternity in Psalm 23 and Josh Garrells is highlighting in those poetic phrases. Namely that it is the one who is with us in the midst of the cycle that matters. It is the relationship we have with Him. It is any relationship that we possess in this life that is the miracle of this life. In the middle of the hardness there is the bright light of relationship. There is nothing left. All things go to dust but memory does not. What we have from our relationships make life manageable if not enjoyable at times. If we don't have those, if they have been destroyed, if trust and love and been exploded by the travesty of pursuing a good life, there is nothing left but a hard life and it's crashing waves of misery. Why is suicide up? Because life is hard and we are poverty stricken in relational capacity which has left us hopeless.
It is only when we embrace the dusty end of our existence on this life that we can finally have to the fullness the only that matters in the journey, and that is the presence of those precious ones we take for granted in our hopeless pursuit of our best life now. Chief among them is the Lord. Praise Him! Even when all has gone wrong as it is wont to do. He is there. He is watching. He is hearing. So, life is hard...but that's ok.
There is this author, Phillip Keller. He was a British shepherd man of God. Yes, that means he was a true shepherd of sheep and he was a man of God. He wrote about wonderful words about Jesus the Shepherd of the human race and the similarities between the sheep and our human existence. One thing that really stood out was the cycle of life that transpired in one year for the herd. This cycle was very similar to the cycle David writes about in Psalm 23.
I know that it is our tendency to pull apart verses and focus on one more than another, but imagine taking apart a masterpiece painting; literally cutting that one section out and just appreciating it by itself. You would have made yourself the artist and stopped listening to the voice of the one who painted who was trying to say something to you. In Psalm 23, it is the whole that is powerful. It is the entire cycle. It is wonderful luxury of the care of the Great Shepherd, Yeshua, who takes us to beautiful moments. But it is also the dark days of death, the days of war and attack by enemies. These also are days, Yeshua, the Great Shepherd, is there. This is reality. We strive to no end to keep the bad days away and never realize that bad days are part of life. They are hard...and that's ok because that is the journey of life. It is a cycle of spring through winter, birth to death. It is joy and grief. This journey is where the exhibition of His concern is revealed.
I'm enjoying Josh Garrells the last year or so. He wrote a song for 2008's "Jacaranda" album entitled, Season of Rain. Here is the opening verse...
Praise the Lord, when it’s all gone wrong Everything fades but our love shines on.
Embrace it. It's life. The laws of thermodynamics confirm it. Everything moves to greater decay. All things, everywhere. This is life as God designed it. And we precious ones who shake our fist at him for his lack of mercy to make life "better" are miserable indeed. We fail to realize that in the hardness of life, when we finally realize that all things go to dust, and we have expended every last effort to repel that fact from our midst, that there is this grand irony. There is only one thing with longevity and is is what David is celebrating for eternity in Psalm 23 and Josh Garrells is highlighting in those poetic phrases. Namely that it is the one who is with us in the midst of the cycle that matters. It is the relationship we have with Him. It is any relationship that we possess in this life that is the miracle of this life. In the middle of the hardness there is the bright light of relationship. There is nothing left. All things go to dust but memory does not. What we have from our relationships make life manageable if not enjoyable at times. If we don't have those, if they have been destroyed, if trust and love and been exploded by the travesty of pursuing a good life, there is nothing left but a hard life and it's crashing waves of misery. Why is suicide up? Because life is hard and we are poverty stricken in relational capacity which has left us hopeless.
It is only when we embrace the dusty end of our existence on this life that we can finally have to the fullness the only that matters in the journey, and that is the presence of those precious ones we take for granted in our hopeless pursuit of our best life now. Chief among them is the Lord. Praise Him! Even when all has gone wrong as it is wont to do. He is there. He is watching. He is hearing. So, life is hard...but that's ok.
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