{"id":1133,"date":"2012-04-14T11:57:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T15:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1133"},"modified":"2013-06-26T11:18:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:18:42","slug":"when-life-is-hard-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1133","title":{"rendered":"When Life is Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Does Life have to be this<\/em> Hard?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ever asked yourself that question?<\/p>\n

Ever asked God<\/em> that question?<\/p>\n

Life is tough. But does it have to be this<\/em> hard?<\/p>\n

These are the kinds of questions that arise from living life in a still-fallen world.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an interesting portion of God\u2019s Word that speaks to why life here and now has to be difficult. It comes from the dark days of the judge of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow these are the nations that the LORD left, to test<\/strong><\/span> Israel by them … It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach<\/strong><\/span> war to those who had not known it before \u2026 They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.\u201d <\/em>(Judges 3:1a, 2, 4a)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Life in the Promised Land was anything but easy. The Israelites were required to dispossess people from their land and take it for God, His people and His purposes. To be sure they had not done their part thoroughly. They had been disobedient to the Lord in this. Yet, as the Scripture above reveals, there was a divine purpose in not immediately purging Canaan of all Israel\u2019s enemies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

God had a two-fold purpose for leaving some of the inhabitants of the land, not removing them entirely from before and amid Israel.<\/p>\n

The first purpose was that of testing<\/strong>. God wanted to see if His people would obey His Word. The hardship, difficulty and battles were there to test and expose the heart-condition of His people. Would they obey God when it was inconvenient?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The second purpose was that of training<\/strong>. Having exposed the truth about His people\u2019s hearts and having regained their allegiance, God wanted to make sure His people did not grow soft amid the peace He provided. He did this expressly because He knew that they would not and could not always experience total peace in this world. God knew there would be other battles ahead of them and they still needed to know how to make war.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

God does not remove all the difficulties and challenges from your life either. He allows many of these for these same two reasons. God is testing<\/strong><\/span> you. He wants you to have an opportunity to prove your love for and fidelity to Him. The way that is drawn out and expressed is through your obedience to His written Word in uncomfortable situations.<\/p>\n

God is also training<\/strong><\/span> you. He wants to make you learn by experience to discern<\/em> and defend<\/em> the truth (Heb. 5:14). And He wants this not in some merely theoretical way, but in the real world of relationships, ministry, workplace, school, and neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Testing<\/strong><\/span> deals with matters of our h<\/strong>earts<\/strong><\/span>. Do I love<\/strong><\/span> God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength?<\/p>\n

Training<\/strong><\/span> deals with matters our hands<\/strong>. <\/span>Will I learn the skill<\/strong><\/span> of honoring God in the hard places of my life and relationships?<\/p>\n

Still we ask: Does life have to be this<\/em> hard?<\/p>\n

Living under the care of a sovereign Lord, the answer must be \u201cYes!\u201d He is good and all He does is good (Psalm 119:68). He finds no pleasure in our difficulties. But they are necessary for now, for in these things our Master is winning our allegiance and making us discipleship indeed (John 8:31-32).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does Life have to be this Hard? Ever asked yourself that question? Ever asked God that question? Life is tough. But does it have to be this hard? These are the kinds of questions that arise from living life in a still-fallen world. Here\u2019s an interesting portion of God\u2019s Word that speaks to why life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judges","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-ih","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}