I remember when I was very little, my father would make me sit at the dinner table until I have finished all my food, and like most kids, vegetables were the reason I still had to sit there while everyone else was already on the couch watching TV. Children, blissfully ignorant of what real struggles await them in life, can find simple things like this challenging, and for me, this was a really big struggle.
They weren’t big portions, but they were well balanced, so some of it tasted great and others tasted a little more healthy. I grew very fast at a young age, so much so that I was the second tallest kid at school for most of my junior years, which meant that it was crucial for me to get enough nutrition. Even so, I couldn’t care less, I hated sitting there, having to suffer through those meals, but I remember something my father use to say to me: “Jy is klaar as dít klaar is” which means that you are finished when it is finished.
It has been so many years since, but today I realise that, although my struggles are a whole lot different now, those words still apply in many of my struggles and challenges today.
We get obstacles in life, some are huge and may pass quickly, others may be small but persistent, whichever it may be, the first thing we look for when they come up, is an alternative route. The first thing we pray for is for our heavenly Father to take them away, to take us around it, open another door or give us an exit. Is it wrong to ask for another way? Absolutely not, but sometimes there is no alternative route, sometimes we need to go through it to get through it and we will be finished with it when it is finished.
When we ask God to guide us and lead us, we need to accept that sometimes that is going to mean that He is going to lead us through things, things that might really be uncomfortable.
Just like my earthly father had a good reason to push me through those meals, so too does our heavenly Father have good reason for taking us through certain things. My earthly father knew he needed to give me what my body needed to grow and get stronger, and our heavenly Father sometimes needs to lead us through things so that we can get the right nutrition for our soul and our faith so that it may also grow and get stronger.
How would we ever know any faith if it is never put to the test? How would we ever experience the power in the name of God, if we are never in any position of weakness? How would we come to know just how close He is if we never have to walk through the fire? Do we not see the true power of a light best when it is dark?
Where did the Israelites see God when Moses led them out of Egypt? In the dark. In the difficult times, in the struggles and hardship, that is where they saw the hand of God, that is where they saw the light. Everything remarkable about their journey is what they had to go through and all the challenges they had to face. God could have made it all so easy for them from the start, but something happened in that desert, something needed to grow and develop, something that they would not have had if God gave them a quick and smooth ride to the promised land.
In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 Paul says the following:
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
In Romans 5:3-5 Paul also says:
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Let us remember not to feel that God has failed us when we do not get to take the route we prayed for or when we cannot find an alternative route. God wants us to be strong and healthy and sometimes that means we will need to face Pharaoh, cross the Red Sea and walk through the desert for a long time, because somewhere in there is where we get to know our God.
God bless,
Miryna van As