Holding Tight

February 17, 2005 | By Mark | Add a Comment

I remember speaking with my father three or four months ago and I remember him saying, “I never knew life would be so hard”. That really struck me. We are all so fragile. When I was young, I was very optimistic about life and how great it would be. I was going to play for the Celtics, marry the woman of my dreams, and do great things for God in the process of changing the world. As I grow older, I find life just plain hard. There is joy, but a lot of loss, sadness and pain needs to be fought through to find it.

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’… Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 2, 13-14).

As I look back at the last 8 years of my life, they’ve each been incredibly challenging in their own way. There’s been a lot of good times, but each year has seemed to be full of trials and obstacles. I feel like I’m overdue for an easy year. It’s difficult not knowing what is in store for the future. Each year seems to bring more duties and responsibilities, more sorrows, and less pleasure. Life could get dramatically easier, dramatically harder, or stay pretty much the same. The Father holds tomorrow in His hands.

Have faith like a child. Fear God and keep his commandments. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey. Dear God, help me to trust in your sovereignty and love for me, help me to fear you and keep your commandments, and help me to find joy in the midst of the hardness of life.

Category: Musings

Random Quote

Driving without Headlights
I don’t know what you do up here in Northern Indiana. Where I came from, on Friday nights, we used to get in our Dads’ trucks cause they used to build those trucks so that you could run over anything and it wouldn’t hurt them. You know, the old gravel roads, they just ran straight for miles and miles and miles. You never had to turn your car because you were always going in one direction until you wanted to go in another direction and then you had to wait until you came to a road to make a turn and then you’d make the turn and go straight in that direction for a long ways.

It was pretty easy driving, so what we always liked to do is go out as far in the country as we could get to where there weren’t any houses or anything that we could find. Then, you’d go as just about as fast as you dared going and you’re turn the lights out. Then the truck, in the middle of the night… It wasn’t a real smart thing to do. But luckily, they built those trucks real sturdily. And our dads always just thought they were getting beat up out in the field. They didn’t know it was in someone else’s field.

So one time I was driving from Philadelphia to Miami, Florida. I was going down Interstate 95 through Maryland, which I don’t ordinary think of as being a beatuiful part of the world. But it’s shocking how beautiful Maryland is. Of course, it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and it was a full moon and so just about any place is pretty at 2 in the morning with a full moon if you’re all by yourself.

And I started thinking about how we used to do that when we were kids. How we used to turns those lights out and drive a little bit too fast on gravel roads. And I wondered if I could still see by moonlight like I could when I was younger. So, I looked around and made sure there weren’t any cars and clicked them off right there in Maryland. Only this time, I didn’t drive too fast because I wasn’t quite so young anymore. I had gotten in the habit of trying to soak up things instead of speed by them.

Looking at Maryland I began to think of just the goodness that I was not blind. Sometimes you have to go to Maryland to remember what a joy it is to see. But then I began to think about even if I was in the middle of Brooklyn – with that moon – if there was a power shortage and there weren’t any lights to interrupt – probably even Brooklyn would be pretty with that moon. I remembered how it used to look when you’d drive in the spring and the corn was just starting to come up and the rows were real short.

You know, sometimes we think that everything is changing. But I’ll tell you what – the same moon is up there tonight. The same stars that Abraham saw – they’re all up there. The same God that put them there and made them shine, He’s still there too. And I don’t know what life has for you. I don’t know what life has for me. But I know this: I know that God is good and I know that God does not lie. I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish He would have given us someone else’s life. But He chose to give you your life. Don’t despair of it.

Rich Mullins

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