tough stuff
// March 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Inspiration
One of those annoying ‘facts of life’ is simply that at times things get really tough! One minute you’re having a whale of a time and then next it feels like the whale just landed on you! One minute you were driving along quite happily, enjoying the fresh breeze of the ministry and good friendships and then all of sudden you’re stuck in a traffic jam with no possible exit for miles.
The point is that at some point or other you’re going to hit a wall called ‘hard’ or ‘impossible’ and you’ll be faced with two decisions: 1) stop and camp at it’s base deciding to spend the rest of your life at that level or 2) work out how to grow a few feet taller so you can climb over it!
It might seem a bit of a no-brainer to some but the truth is we often hit these walls and it doesn’t matter what we do or how much stretching we undergo the wall remains impassable!
I’ve found myself looking up at all kinds of walls. We had it as a family when my son was born and we discovered he would need a series of operations. I had it as a Pastor when suddenly I was faced with two families at war thanks to an adulterous affair. I’ve had it as a business owner when faced with the need for new clients and a stable income and I’ve had it as the head of a household when faced with balancing the budget and working out how on earth we are going to get through the next few months without resorting to eating cardboard.
What I’ve discovered through it all is that there are some walls which are only really called ‘difficult’ and ‘need-to-try-a-bit-harder’ and can easily be climbed over if you just get off your lazy backside and put in a little effort. But there are some walls which are just simply too big to deal with and it’s our mistake to try and tackle these on our own.
Too many people try to be Spiderman but they always end up being swatted back down by the scale of the task. Instead if you want to deal with the really hard things of life then the only way to become big enough to climb the wall is to let God get bigger instead!
Whatever we face in life we don’t face it alone and too often we limit God by bringing him down to our level. You’re doing life with the Creator of the Universe and yet when we hit a hard wall of ‘provision’ or ‘insecurity’ we get so fixated on dealing with the tough that we forget that his middle name is ‘tough’.
So next time you hit a wall that’s too high to scale – instead of trying to work out how YOU can climb it why not try looking to the one who’s already perched on the top waiting for you to reach up and ask for some help. We need to keep allowing God to become bigger in our world. After all He’s able to do ‘immeasureably more’ than all we can ask or imagine… so let’s give Him some place to grow!
(If you’ve got a Tall Wall Story then let me know and share how God grew in your understanding to enable you to get over it!)
Chris is the Congregation Pastor of 
