Though The Earth Give Way

"God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea"

- Psalm 46: 1-2

Have you ever felt like you had the rug pulled out from under you?

Or experienced unforseen pain, heartache, and other chaotic situations that sent your head spinning and your heart down a dark road?

I feel like most of the hurt we undergo in this lifetime comes from stuff we never expected. It's like we start out as children a giant boulder, but we get put under the waterfall of a fallen world that erodes us until we are nothing more than a pebble.

"The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress."

- Psalm 46:7

All of the sudden it hits us all at once, giving us a feeling like we are drowning and can barely keep our head above water.

The Earth gives way and we crumble, left as a shell of the person we were before. We call out for rescue, trying desperately to figure out how we ended up in this horrible place.

"He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

- Psalm 46:10

In our heart rages a battle between confusion, hurt, love, joy, etc. It's a endless cycle of emotions.

We struggle to find the foundation under us.

"He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
"The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress."

- Psalm 46: 10-11

That's the foundation. That's how we stop from crumbling when our world seems to fall apart. That's how we get through each day and all that it brings. That is the air we breathe, our rock, our fortress.

That's how you thrive in this life filled with chaos. Go ahead, try other stuff. However, take the word of a guy that has been through hell and back in multiple ways and who has experienced the faithfulness of God first hand.

God is our rock, and he never fails.

Stay the course. Don't give up. Don't lose heart.

You Are Anything But Ordinary

Some days I find myself waking up and thinking "Wow, there are so many mundane tasks I have to accomplish today. Life just feels....ordinary." 

I might even sit down for a few minutes and scroll through my news feed on Facebook or Twitter to see what others are up to. Chances are I will read about all kinds of folks who are doing a ton of other things that are really extraordinary. 

Then that thought comes back, but in a different way: "I'm so.....ordinary".

Am I though? Is my existence on this Earth nothing more than a rhythm of work, rest, hang with friends, work again, get a haircut, work, friends....... etc?

Do you ever feel ordinary? Like, what's the point?

You see it's all about perspective. There is this lie out there in this global world, where every second of the day we have an outlet to compare ourselves to others, that what we are doing or who we are is just not good enough or cool enough.

It's a lie that tells us, not only as we not as good as the next person, but our lives carry no weight or influence in the places we go and with the people we see. 

WRONG.

If you are a follower of Christ, then every single day you have a heavenly Father showering fatherly love on you just aching to have your heart become one with his. Not only that, but He also makes us whole in a way where we don't have to compare ourselves to others.

"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." - 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Because Christ died to restore our right relationship with the Father, we too now have a role to play in the way we love others in our everyday lives.

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 2 Corinthians 16-21

Your life is consequently anything but ordinary. Every single day we live, we have been gifted with the opportunity to receive the love of the Father for ourselves, and then to be that love for others.

Life is a day by day process. There are no big things that don't contain lots of little steps to get there. Anyone who has achieved anything of worth will tell you that it took lots of day to day discipline and hard work.

As Mother Teresa once said: "There are no big things, only small things with great love."

Live today as the loved, reconciled, ambassador of peace that you are. Let God work in and through you to transform those seemingly ordinary places, into places where people experience the love of God.