Enjoying the Journey

One of life's cruelest ironies is that true growth comes only through opposition. That in order to really know happiness, we must somehow also experience the sad. That the earth was cursed for our sake. 

"Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it" -Anonymous.

Of the many realities of which I am sure, one most literal is that life has a tendency of blessing us with trials and opposition; those rugged days of darkness shared with long nights of loneliness and fear. As they are trials to learn from, to grow from, they seem to come when we're the least prepared for them. But they also arrive when we may need them most, always tailored best to allow for our personal growth.   

To that end, there is one source whose very existence is focused upon our eternal misery and pain. And while he seems to attack when at our weakest, he's just as likely to engage when all seems right in the world. He gives nothing and yet he takes everything! He offers the world, but the world isn't his to offer. His is one of illusion, a magician of smoke and mirrors. 

A masterful artist, he paints with a broad brush an alluring portrait which only ends in the enslavement and destruction to the frequent viewer. 

He promotes and encourages selfishness, greed, gluttony, envy, and hate. He presents a guarantee of salvation found only in the artificial coupled with loss of freedoms. A salvation that is fleeting, misleading, and destructive and not genuine or real. 

His purposes serve only him. But they leave a wake of devastation, despair, and woe. 
When I feel my weakest emotionally, when I've reached the deepest depths of my sorrow, when I feel most vulnerable and desperate, then is the time when I must remember and understand that God knows and loves each of us. But we cannot become lax and naiive into believing that the adversary doesn't knows us either or that he is somehow far away - especially once we feel stronger than before. Now he doesn't know us to the extent that God knows us. But he has not forgotten the choices we made in the preexistence. He is aware of our potentials and weaknesses. And he is frighteningly aware of our strengths as well.

Which brings us to one of my favorite quotes on trials:

"It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life."

Satan celebrates this and nothing pleases him more than to destroy, even in its infancy, a decision that holds the power of changing lives, extending into the eternities. A choice where the affects can and will change the lives of so many. 

Of the many blessings I enjoy and appreciate most, those that I hold dear and cherish most, the greatest have come from those scary, life altering moments of trial and tribulation. Those moments the Lord has allowed me to experience but in which He also carried me through, always stronger, always better.

While we often turn to God when all seems against us, we must remember Him always. The words to the hymn, I need thee Every Hour offer a lesson on this matter:

I need thee ev’ry hour,

In joy or pain.

Come quickly and abide,

Or life is vain.

The very title of the hymn speaks volumes. But I love the line, "In JOY or pain." To forget the Lord during those moments when blessings seem to be overflowing is to invite pain and sorrow. Often the true test of a soul comes when all seems well in Zion, but yet ceasing not to call on the Lord and give thanks. Remember that "in nothing doth man offend God . . . save those who confess not his hand in all thing?"

I love the testimony I have of knowing that He Knows Me! Hence, while I am not grateful for my trials during them, I am eternally thankful for them when the journey is through.