A friend asked me recently – if it ever gets better? If this life, these questions, this wrestling and the ups and downs in life ever get better?
Will we not always have struggles? Will we not always have pain? Will the enemy not always try and bring us down, attack us, and do anything in His power to steal, kill, and destroy?
Yes, my dear friend. He will – for as long as He is not yet bound forever, He will! So yes, for as long as Jesus has not yet come back again and fulfilled His ultimate purpose and restored His creation to what it was originally intended to be, we will always struggle and wrestle with things because that is the reality of the broken world we live in.
But, – and this is important and big: BUT, we have hope in Jesus.
So yes, life does get better.
It doesn’t get better in the sense that brokenness can’t touch as anymore – it can. Nor that the enemy will stop trying to attack us – He most likely will.
In many ways, I believe the closer and more intimately we walk with Jesus, the less brokenness can touch us, but the more the enemy will try and tear us down.
But that’s exactly it – the more we walk closely and intimately with Jesus, the more we learn about Him, imitate Him, become more like Him, and know Him deeply and personally. And life only gets better.
Why?
Because life with Jesus is sweet and beautiful and worth it – because in Him we receive everything we ever need.
It is true, when we look to Jesus, only and completely to Him, we receive peace.
Sometimes, that is a journey. Sometimes, the brokenness and pain of this world blinds us so much that the road to sweet peace isn’t a matter of a few minutes or hours or days, but weeks and months.
You can look at this life like a journey.
We start it out, and start walking with Jesus, and every day we keep making that decision to walk with Jesus.
And as we get to know Him better and more deeply, we are closer to Him and walk with Him more intimately.
And then something hits us, and we wrestle and struggle and feel broken and in pain.
But if we keep looking to and for Jesus in the middle of that suffering, even if we can’t feel Him or truly find Him or see Him, He will use this to teach us something new about Him, and bring us into a greater dimension of knowledge and intimacy with Him. Closer to Him.
And then something new comes, and it brings us down again – and the same thing happens again.
And we come out stronger, closer to Him, with more knowledge of Him, because we continue to experience Him as ever-loving and gentle, merciful and faithful. Because that is who He is in His very character – He cannot be any other way.
And so the more this happens, the longer we walk with Him, the more we KNOW His faithfulness and love and gentleness and kindness and mercy and grace towards us, deeply and intimately. And the more we know this personally and intimately, the sweeter life gets – because of who He is.
So yes, we will always have struggles and difficulties, but if we keep walking with the Lord, we will know Him deeper, we will have a different kind of trust that He will sustain us through it all. And that depth of trust, that KNOWING in the depth of our hearts who the Lord is because of our experience of Him, that is what makes life sweeter.
And that is why life only gets better, if it is a life with Jesus. If we allow Him to continually restore and renew our hearts, our minds, and our ways.
If we truly follow Him, look to Him, if we live a life of forgiveness and redemption, if we walk with Him humbly, and if we know a true fear of the Lord and love for Him, it will continue to be increased.
And life only ever gets better.
