4 Reasons Your Life Is Okay No Matter How Bad Things Are

Present problems provide a perception that lacks perspective.

As I browsed photos I’d posted on social media over the past two years I noticed something.  Not only was life no longer plagued by the problems of then, now I have new problems to deal with.  Even though I could track some problems of past, including the fatal diagnosis and imminent stillbirth of our son, Nathanael, today’s problems outweighed everything of past, because, and this is the important point, I have God’s faithfulness to reflect on for those experiences of past where He upheld me in those difficulties.

Life is okay no matter how bad things are, presently, for these four reasons:

1.     God was faithful in the past, so He can be trusted to be faithful in the future.  (The only caveat on this is God’s faithfulness requires our trusting obedience, yet even when we fall short, God is able to show Himself faithful.)

2.     The present is soon the past.  It can no longer cause us the immediacy of pain (though pain may still be memorialised — for which therapy and healing are designed).

3.     We have what it takes to choose to be happy and content, no matter the circumstances that swarm about us.

4.     Our suffering is still limited to our context; we’re not required to suffer any more than we are presently, which we, by God’s grace, have the capacity to endure.

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No matter how bad things are, everything will be okay, because, God is faithful, the present will soon be past, we can choose to be content, and our suffering has limits that we’re able to endure.

Present problems present the prospect to conform unhealthy perceptions to a healthier perspective.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.