It ain’t easy

fountain pen on black lined paper

Dear Lunastelle,

Much time from my last letter has passed. News of your growth in the faith encourages me. I, too, continue to gain understanding, but more, our Lord’s revelations enrich my hope. To believe Jesus, to believe in Him is to be renewed and born again. To get to know Him better every day is a beginning again and every beginning again brings us closer to Him. By mercy we are saved. By mercy God works in us and through us. We should not impede God but yield to His working.

God’s work within us is a healing, a slow miracle of grace, every bit the supernatural kind like healing the blind. Every sanctified soul will be used for God’s purposes no matter the size or time or human failing we assign to it. God works in His way through our imperfection. We must remember this. Of our self, we can do nothing. We cannot behave our way to heaven.

So many spend time attempting to conform to the world, few to God. The choice is a simple one really. To the world, it is easy.  To God is the hard one. There are so many distractions around us. Conforming to the world means to follow the crowd, to follow every distraction. There is a paradox here because by joining the crowd, you will be alone. This does not mean you will be by yourself. There are many who follow. This means there will come a time when the crowd will reject you because they never cared for you, only the distraction that they, too, followed. It is strange to be alone in a crowd.

The hard choice, conforming to God, His good purpose for you, will often mean you will be by yourself. But you will never be alone because God is there through His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is your helper and guide, your companion when you cannot see the way, when you are away from the crowd, when you are against it or it is against you. You will want to leave the hard road. The easy one is too alluring. We are inclined toward easy. Seek God. Ask for help. He does and will provide.

Hard is a freedom from easy, an assurance of hope, a revelation of meaning and promise. Hard and easy exact a cost to be weighed. Gain and loss come with each. Easy satisfies your desire but diminishes you. Hard sets you apart and refines you to become.

Lunastelle, this is life, all life for all time. For this choice you were created. For this truth every person is born to find through difficulty. And when we heal, we turn from self for self’s sake to a thirst for what God wishes us to know, to become, to do, to love. How could anyone know we love them but first to love God with all our heart? How could anyone know God loves them but He lives in us?

It ain’t easy.

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