Do You Think Life Is Tough?

by Donna L. Watkins

Not too long ago I had a paradigm shift on how I viewed God. I was doing the workbook, "Breaking the Cycle of Hurtful Family Relationships," and had great revelation of my beliefs about God. They certainly didn't line up with what I spoke and thought about God, so I was really shocked to find these "hidden" belief systems that I could see shaped my everyday life.

One of the lies I believed has been that Life Is Tough! You work the program and overcome it and it's a daily battle, sometimes hourly, and you get through hoping for a better day when tomorrow dawns.

I surely had agreement in the Church and Christian circles with it because trials and tribulations are a part of our lives as the Bible says. However, I sure felt challenged when I would hit James 1 with "consider it pure joy, my brothers ...." I definitely knew I was missing the message in those trials. You can't say "life is tough" with a joyful voice or expression.

I knew the 'God loves you' verses and I voiced the words and I thought about Him loving me when things would go sour in life ... but I didn't believe it! It did not make a difference in how I handled the circumstances of life.

The amazing thing!? I'm finding that many people don't really believe it. If you listen to what people say and what they do to make themselves feel loved, you'll find a frenzy of folks shopping, eating, reading romance novels, running from one relationship to another and partying to find something to replace the love they're missing.

Where has Faith gone in the Church? You can't have Faith in a God that you believe doesn't love you. You can't trust your life to somebody that you believe doesn't love you.

What do you think about when things go wrong in life? Do you consider what you may be doing wrong that needs correction for God to allow that event in your life? He is a perfect parent and will discipline us as needed from love (Hebrews 12:5-6). There has been so much wrong discipline going on in families that we take aversion to any discipline at all as if we don't need any correction on our path in life.

Then we have a choice on our thoughts. We can believe God just doesn't care about us [abandonment] or is a mean and punishing god [like a parent was]. Either way we don't see love in any of it because we have lenses between us and Him that change our vision based on our childhood.

Generally we just seek relief rather than revelation on the root cause. If we don't have any love for ourselves, because we have not believed in our Father's love, we won't want to consider our actions because we will react to that with another wrong reaction of guilt and shame. Somewhere along life's path we have been rejected and made to feel like a failure and that wound has remained open and raw.

Until we accept God's true love and are willing to accept that He is all-knowing and has a plan for our lives, we attempt to stay in control with substitutions that never satisfy.

Our minds are filled with wrong thoughts that bring us down emotionally and our health is greatly affected and our relationships fail because we attract the wrong people.

We do not make the right choice to think what God tells us to think about:

Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

We're usually so busy rehearsing what the "devil is doing in our lives" when we have the power and joy available to keep him at a far distance from being able to get at us. May I be bold as to say that "the devil can't get to your life unless you let him?" We have to believe that God loves us, and in that we can love ourselves and others, which will change the whole world around.

Don't waste your life rehearsing the evil of the day and past. Begin to look some place else for your thoughts. Ask God for a Scripture to deliver you from this and stick with it. Memorize it! Stand on it in faith and belief. Renew your mind with one healing moment or thought at a time about how much God truly loves you!

How about Ephesians 3:16-19:
"That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God."

I memorized a poem that I've fallen in love with. It has helped me to remember how awesome our Creator God is and how wonderful each day is because there is a God of Tomorrow.

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