"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not by your own works. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Ephesians 2:8-9
You know what I hate about the world? I hate how perfect they want us to be. The perfect face. The perfect hair. The perfect body. The perfect workout routine. The perfect personality. The perfect job. The perfect...human. There are so many people out there that think if they just become better, if they just lost weight, if they just earned more money, then they would have it all together and be happier and have a better life worth living. How horrible must that be--living a life that's never what you want? How unsatisfying?! What must it be like to go through life always wanting more or something different?
I can't say I've never been there. Frequently I catch myself thinking, "Why am I not losing weight? I workout 5 times a week at least and still nothing. Why can't I lose weight like those people on TV or even like some friends of mine?" It's beyond frustrating. But the thing is, I need to remember that I was knit together in my mother's womb by a God who loves me and knows everything about me (Psalm 139). He created me the way I am for a reason. Maybe me not losing weight is an encouragement to those who take my fitness classes because not every person who does these classes has to be tiny. Maybe that's it. I doubt it though. I know God has a reason, but sometimes we never understand.
I hate when people say, "God will show you the reason eventually...There's a purpose in everything...You'll understand one day." What if I never understand? What if the only reason I'm going through this is because I live in a fallen world? I'm not just referring to losing weight, as you might have already noticed. I bet you're thinking, "Man this girl is really fired up about weight loss, dang." The thing is, I see stuff happen all the time around me: friend's dad passing from cancer, my sister getting cancer, people getting hit by their husbands, children being abandoned, etc. and I think to myself, "Why? Why do these people have to go through this?" In the end, it never really makes sense to me. I never see the full picture. Yes, there's a purpose, Fine, that's biblical so I agree but trying to cope with that is easier said than done. The truth is, you may never know why you go through things or why God allows things to happen to you. The truth is, we live in a fallen world where sin is all around us and you may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The truth is, maybe you were in the right place, right time, maybe this is just how life goes because we don't live in a perfect Kingdom yet.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of 'just' and 'unjust'?...What was I comparing this universe with when I was calling it unjust? Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies..." There is a place we get our idea of just and unjust from. It comes from God.
I guess I have kind of strayed from the original purpose of this post, but what I'm getting at is that we are not perfect, this world is not perfect, and we cannot expect it to ever be. We are saved through faith not because we worked hard enough to be saved or because one night when we were young we got baptized. Nothing but faith saves us. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved," (Romans 10:9) Our faith saves, not our perfection.
Ephesians 2:8-9
You know what I hate about the world? I hate how perfect they want us to be. The perfect face. The perfect hair. The perfect body. The perfect workout routine. The perfect personality. The perfect job. The perfect...human. There are so many people out there that think if they just become better, if they just lost weight, if they just earned more money, then they would have it all together and be happier and have a better life worth living. How horrible must that be--living a life that's never what you want? How unsatisfying?! What must it be like to go through life always wanting more or something different?
I can't say I've never been there. Frequently I catch myself thinking, "Why am I not losing weight? I workout 5 times a week at least and still nothing. Why can't I lose weight like those people on TV or even like some friends of mine?" It's beyond frustrating. But the thing is, I need to remember that I was knit together in my mother's womb by a God who loves me and knows everything about me (Psalm 139). He created me the way I am for a reason. Maybe me not losing weight is an encouragement to those who take my fitness classes because not every person who does these classes has to be tiny. Maybe that's it. I doubt it though. I know God has a reason, but sometimes we never understand.
I hate when people say, "God will show you the reason eventually...There's a purpose in everything...You'll understand one day." What if I never understand? What if the only reason I'm going through this is because I live in a fallen world? I'm not just referring to losing weight, as you might have already noticed. I bet you're thinking, "Man this girl is really fired up about weight loss, dang." The thing is, I see stuff happen all the time around me: friend's dad passing from cancer, my sister getting cancer, people getting hit by their husbands, children being abandoned, etc. and I think to myself, "Why? Why do these people have to go through this?" In the end, it never really makes sense to me. I never see the full picture. Yes, there's a purpose, Fine, that's biblical so I agree but trying to cope with that is easier said than done. The truth is, you may never know why you go through things or why God allows things to happen to you. The truth is, we live in a fallen world where sin is all around us and you may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The truth is, maybe you were in the right place, right time, maybe this is just how life goes because we don't live in a perfect Kingdom yet.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of 'just' and 'unjust'?...What was I comparing this universe with when I was calling it unjust? Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies..." There is a place we get our idea of just and unjust from. It comes from God.
I guess I have kind of strayed from the original purpose of this post, but what I'm getting at is that we are not perfect, this world is not perfect, and we cannot expect it to ever be. We are saved through faith not because we worked hard enough to be saved or because one night when we were young we got baptized. Nothing but faith saves us. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved," (Romans 10:9) Our faith saves, not our perfection.