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Easy
solutions and quick fixes …
I am
a little nervous about telling you this, because if you know about it then
it doesn’t give me any way of changing my mind and getting out of it,
but maybe that is not a bad thing, so here we go.
I am
trying to lose some weight.
There,
I’ve said it. I think that at this point I am supposed to feel better
for having told you that, but I don’t, mainly because I have tried to
lose a bit of weight before and not succeeded in keeping it off, and I
will feel a bit embarrassed if that is what happens this time.
But
I am determined that it won’t happen this time, because this time I have
a plan!! And no, it’s not one of those diets that seem to be promoted by
one celebrity or another every other day, and I am not even going to buy
the latest “miracle” diet pill (£49.95 for one month’s supply)
which works by absorbing about 25% of the fat from food, thus preventing
it being turned into extra pounds.
My
plan I simple – I am going to eat less food that’s bad for me, and I
am going to exercise more. We have even bought an exercise bike, so there
is even more of an incentive to not just slob on the sofa watching TV –
now I can get some exercise while watching TV!!
The
thing is that, unfortunately for me, there are no easy solutions or quick
fixes to losing weight in a healthy way, and then keeping that weight off.
It will take discipline, effort, self-control, and time. But hopefully it
will be worth it in the end.
In fact, there are very few easy solutions and quick fixes, no matter how
much we might want them. Very few worthwhile things come easily – we
might want our family relationships to improve, we might want our
financial position to be stronger, or we might want our career prospects
to be better, but the simple truth is that for any of these to happen it
is going to require time, effort, self-control, and many other things as
well.
And
I’m afraid to say that that is also the case with regards to our faith.
The thing we might want most in life is for our relationship with God to
be deeper and more intimate. What a fantastic attitude! Wouldn’t God
want that for us also? So why doesn’t He just do something miraculous
and remove all the doubts we have, and then remove all the temptations we
have, and then remove all the distractions we have, because then we could
be totally and utterly focused on God, totally and utterly available to
God, and totally and utterly devoted to God. Wouldn’t that be great? So
why doesn’t God just do that?
I
guess if we are really honest with ourselves, we have all had times when
we have wanted God to do something like that for us – I know I have.
Sometimes it just all seems so hard – too hard, in fact – and if God
would just intervene and change things then we know that everything will
be fine, both now and in the future, because we would never be faced with
such doubt or temptation or opposition again.
But
my experience is that the times when I have grown the most in my faith are
the times when it has been most difficult to believe, and I am sure that I
am not alone in being able to say that. The times when temptation has been
unbearable, or opposition fierce, or doubts huge have been the times when
I have had to choose and decide that I
was a follower of Jesus and a child of God, even though it didn’t feel
like any of that was real. And there have been significant times in my
life when I have walked away from God, when I have wanted nothing more to
do with Church, when I have rejected and ignored the teaching of Jesus,
and as difficult as those times were, and as painful as they are to look
back on, those times played a major part in me coming to understand that
you cannot love God half-heartedly or serve Him occasionally, and that
faith in Jesus is an all-or-nothing choice.
So
don’t be anxious when (note that I said “when” not “if”) you
next go through a time when it is hard to be a Christian, or even if you
are in the middle of a time like that now. God is
faithful, God doesn’t
forget about us or abandon us, and even though you might feel like it
would have been better if you had never had to experience that particular
tough time, God knows that beautiful things grow in deep valleys.
Jon.
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