When the world wins

There are days when i just love life. Well, not so much lately, but still, even now when i pass over the hills and the Gamtoos valley spreads out in front of me, i smile and marvel. Crashing waves, birdsong, newborns, a patient getting better, a yellow flower, happy small kids, laughing teenagers. My people warming my heart with a playlist, a cup of tea, a whatsapp call, a hug. 😊 All makes life worthwhile for a while.

But then there are dark days. More than my fair share of those lately. Days where i just know and am glad that this terrible place is, thank God, not my home! Days where the world wins. Or seemingly, wins.

Today was one of those days. I could nearly hear the enemy laughing and mocking me.

People living without giving a thought to a God who is Real and Just. People who think they are above the law and all and untouchable. People who can break you not because of what they can do to you so much but more how they can let your faith shrink.

As you pray and pray and pray and nothing happens - sometimes for years, as in today’s case - God can seem so far, so distant, so uncaring, and the enemy jumps on all of that and wants me to stop believing. Its not about a house or a disease or a financial crisis anymore. Its about my very belief system. Will i stick it out?

Surely God will come through, but what happens if He doesn’t? If it is His Master plan to let me fail, lose a home, die or watch someone die? Is this what it will take to break my faith? Is this what it will take for me to give up and walk Away? What am i thinking? That i won’t have trouble?  That life is a picnic all the time? 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭

The Testing of my faith. Ah, of course. 

The world might have won today but i might just have passed my Test of Faith, by God’s grace.

I will rather fear a Living God than puny men. I choose to keep close by Jesus’ side than rant and rave or fall into a severe depression because of how my life looks right now. I will keep trusting. And believing in the Only Living God. 

And so nothing has changed but everything has changed.

Bella, hope rises again.