You never know who’s watching you. This is a statement we’ve all often heard growing up from our elders alike when our present behavior wasn’t living up to their expectations of ourselves when we acted out of character. This is something I never truly grasped until I got older and more so when I became a Christian.
The world sees Christians as these perfect people with perfect lives, never enduring issues, never doing wrong, and happy all the time. Some have said Christians are high and mighty individuals with “I’m better than you” mindsets.
These assumptions ignore the fact that we’re all human, and that all make mistakes. Sanctification is a process – it’s not linear like many believe. But God reminds us to flee from our dark old lives, and sinful ways and work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Many don’t realize that the race we run as Christians isn’t even necessarily a race, but a marathon, not won by the fastest, but the one who holds fast to God and remains faithful to the very end. I and many alike have been wrong in our thinking that we have to have had a perfect past or been “perfect people” to even serve God and be considered a Christian. So what if you are not perfect or don’t even feel anything close to it? Can you still be used by God? Are you even a Christian when your life isn’t picture-perfect as the myths portray? Then who are you to God? I gave my life to God two years ago, but these are the thoughts I internalized all of 2022, and maybe you have at a time or another in your life as well.
The year 2022 was marked with many blessings from God, things that only He could have brought to pass and got the glory for in my life, but also a year filled with much pain and turmoil that blinded me to truly how good God had been to me. From continued health related-issues, great battles with depression, and most notably, suicidal thoughts. All of these things were struggles I thought I had left in the life previous to this current one. The trials I endured made me wonder if I could even be a Christian, and maybe you can relate to this position. It was because my present story wasn’t matching up well with those facades of what a Christian’s life is supposedly supposed to look like. One might wonder a multitude of things, but most glaringly, “does God love me?” with what they are enduring. But scripture shows us (like in the book of Job) even a righteous man may endure hell and calamity at one point or another. Does this mean God doesn’t love us or we aren’t Christian because we go through something challenging? Romans 8:31-39 answers our question: Nothing can separate us from the love of God – not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.
Amidst our trials, we may as humans come up so many reasons for things to be happening to us, but maybe, just maybe, our trials aren’t to punish us but to showcase God within us and ultimately give Him the glory. To showcase to someone else who and what we cling to, and how we maintain hope in this fallen world even when we endure an array of what we perceive to be negative and unwanted circumstances. Because (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT) reminds us:
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
This statement couldn’t have been more true. Let me explain: in the year 2022, the unthinkable happened. Amidst my trials and low points on my walk as a Christian, wondering if God saw me, could hear me or even used someone like me who at that time I felt was a shattered shell of his former self? But we all know through our almighty God, that infinitely anything is possible.
God used my bruised and shattered self to shepherd in His light someone who I knew only to ridicule and not believe in God. I thought hell froze over when this individual asked for my assistance and especially about the source – God. However, the Bible reminds us in (Matthew 5:13-16 NLT) who we are in Christ Jesus and our duty as the light in this world. Oftentimes we may fall into this mindset of I’m only Christian if I’m perfect etc., essentially dismissing the act of what Jesus did on the cross for us. We are flesh and blood: we’ll never be perfect, we make mistakes, and we may grow weary along our individual paths which may bring us to low points spiritually and emotionally. But this doesn’t mean we have to stay there. (Proverbs 24:15-16 NLT) reminds us to not wallow in our shortcomings or mistakes, but to get back up every time we falter. Thus giving God the glory in every instance and embracing the grace He extends to us daily.
In the grand scheme of things, the reason we may be enduring a multitude of things could be infinite. It may be to see if we could make it through a storm or not, a way for God to grow us in some facet or etc. But what if the reasoning does not even lie in our own individual lives? Maybe God is using us and our trials as a light for someone else, to lead them toward Him and away from whatever burden they’re carrying. To showcase to whoever, we as Christians cling to amidst our own trials or struggles. To showcase our eternal source, God! Is He truly unfailing? They don’t need to see perfection in us and they won’t, but let us point them to our God who is – that is the power of our witness when we let God abide within us.
