Hopeful-Ish: Finding Jesus in Sadness and PainSample

The Real Thing

Real, true Jesus-following is daily leading yourself to depend on the Lord, to acknowledge the Creator and Savior, to thank Him and ask Him and bless Him, and cry to Him. To run to His Word for life, guidance, comfort, and help. To turn your eyes from false, flimsy, or short-lived sources of hope and run to the true and living Source. To live and breathe prayers, so you can see how very ever-present He is, how generous He is, how involved He is, how real He is. Not because good Christians do this stuff or because you need to go through the motions to keep up good appearances, but because you need these things to live. The fruits of the Christian life are only phony when we look for them in the wrong places.

God is only always real and good. Sometimes, in my weakness, I struggle to believe that’s true.

I don’t want to ever forget the Lord. He’s the REAL real thing. His joy, unspeakable and full of glory, is the one thing we really can’t live without.

Christians don’t move on from experiencing God, so I don’t want to fake it for my family, fake it for my friends, fake it for my readers. I want the real thing today, with Jesus. And I want to hear from Him again tomorrow. I’m praying the same for you.

I hope that if you woke up sad and hopeless feeling today, you are able to remember and repent and return and rejoice. That is so the Christian life.

Remember...repent...return...rejoice. Remember...repent...return...rejoice.

We don’t take our eyes off of Jesus because life isn’t what we want it to be or because we don’t feel “Christiany” today. I mean, we can. And sometimes, we do. But how miserable is the Christian who isn’t walking with Jesus...who isn’t living the Christ life?

Jesus commands us to abide in him in John 15. Abiding is returning to His Word, His presence, His church, His people, even when we don’t feel like it. Especially when we don’t feel like it. Even when the sadness feels crushing, we can still abide. We can keep showing up to the water, especially when our roots and our hearts are dry. We can keep receiving the nourishment of the Word, particularly when our weariness finds its craving for stability and strength at an all-time high. Not because we need to keep up appearances, but because we need—now more than ever—these rhythms to live. Because we need God. That’s not phoniness. That’s just self-control and wisdom. That’s not going through the motions. That’s running to the right place for comfort and sustainment when you’re about to collapse. That’s not fake; that’s the Christ life.