Life holds tons of good stuff and tons of hard stuff.

I’m pretty sure I start out every article and every blog and every workshop I’ve ever led with some derivative of this phrase. Mostly because so much of the way we experience life depends on this single perception.

Do we know it’s normal to have good days and bad days?
When we step out our door, are we able to see the beautiful alongside the ugly in life, and both of those interweaving themselves in us and in our stories?
Are we ok with a God who allows junky stuff to come into our lives alongside the good stuff?

Psalm 46:8-9 reminds us yet again about the good and the hard and the intermingling of the two:

Come, behold the works of the Lord,
    how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the chariots with fire.

We want distinctness. We want separation and clean cut lines between everything. And there is right and wrong, good and evil. But there’s also this pesky little thing called paradox:

God allows desolation. God allows heartache.

God hates desolation. God weeps with us in our heartache.

God brings beauty in the middle of our distress and sometimes the very things that distress us, He will make beautiful.

His works are big and beautiful and miniscule and can be easy to miss at times.

The only way to walk through all the life stuff - good and bad - and be able to make sense of it is by remembering.

We remember:

God creates

God provides

God disciplines

God watches over

God changes - hearts and history

God saves

God brings rest and God brings restoration.

When God brings the good and the hard into our life…

We remember Him.

Hear more on remembering, and making sense of it all, in today’s podcast.

Where do you see God at work in the desolations, the hard stuff of life, and the victories, the times of triumph as well as the times of rest?