Have you ever lamented to someone how hard life is only to have them say, “Suck it up”! What a great help that is!
Sometimes life is just plain hard. In fact, the Bible promises that our lives will be hard. But why is it so hard? We live a society where it is always someone else’s fault. It is the government’s fault, the teacher’s fault, our supervisor’s fault, our kid’s fault, the bank’s fault, God’s fault, our neighbor’s fault, the cop’s fault, etc, etc. It is rarely, if ever, our fault.
There are several reasons our lives are hard:
- The world: sometimes our lives are hard because we live in a fallen world.
- Other people: sometimes our lives are hard because of other people’s sins.
- Our need: sometimes our lives are hard because God needs to mold our character to better reflect His character.
- Our sin: sometimes our lives are hard because of our sin.
Sometimes it is the world and sometimes it is other people. But sometimes life is hard because we need for it to be and/or we deserve for it to be. That was the case for the Israelites.
The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the Lord. They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth. This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions. He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them. Every time Israel went out to battle, the Lord fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned. And the people were in great distress. – Judges 2:11-15 (NLT)
He warned them, they disobeyed Him…and He fought against them. Can you imagine having God consistently fighting against you? Life was hard. That is so true of our lives sometimes. He warns us, we disobey Him…and we are surprised at how hard our lives are! Some of the hardship in our lives is out of our control, but some of it is for our good and because of our sin!
Here is my suggestion for us today…let’s ask God to reveal to us why life is so hard right now. Let’s ask Him why He seems so distant, why nothing seems to be going right. It is the world? It is other people? Or is it that He is making us more like Him through trial or discipline?
