Self-deception and his Blessing ...

Thursday, June 30, 2011. We had a discussion recently about the behaviour of someone in our church. This guy tries to live faith, and somehow pretends that in faith life is happy and easy. Some others strongly oppose this impression and say it is far away from reality of life …

Reality or self-deception? …

How is life working. Someone says: you just have to give a good example, and your kids will behave well. Others have quite different experiences. Kids have their own will and make their own choices. Even if you give a good example, they can decide to go into the other direction and do many things which are not very good.

Some say: God is helping me in everything. But they still have various serious problems. Is it self-deception, to see God's help here? Or is it reality that HE is there and that we are never alone?

When we look in our church, there are many nice people with all the difficulties, which life has to give. Some are lonely. Some are ill. Some have mental problems and some have lost their job. It is all there - in the middle of God's church. It is reality that problems appear in our life. What about the other side, about God's help?

God's blessing …

The bible is full of examlpes where God helped people of faith. It is full of stories where God intervened, where God acted, where God was there and helped. It is sometimes by direct interception. Most of the time it is by his blessing, which is more filling life in a deep sense. Often we cannot directly trace his blessing back to the source. But it is there and its effect become visible over time.

I see God's blessing in many things in the life of those who follow him. He is there to comfort in all our trouble. And he is there to help us through. Solutions sometimes need time, and he is teaching us to develop patience while we have to work on them, while we have to wait and to bear the difficulties.

For me, I am not a supporter of the “easy and happy” movement. I think it is more a wish than reality. But I can understand the wish, I can understand the longing to live in a world without fear and without tears. But this world is still to come … here, we live in a world full of challenges, but also filled with his blessing! ... more texts