Life...its just hard

I'm always looking to the next thing believing when I get there then I'll finally be happy with my circumstances or even myself. When did I start believing that easy means good or that happiness equals perfection?? Why can't Jesus just be enough?

I don't have the answer. I struggle daily to allow Jesus to be enough. And daily I fail. I fail in the little stuff and the big stuff. I fail to pick up my cross and follow him, I fail to die to self, and I fail at giving my life away. And yet, each day God's mercies are new.  His love me for never runs out even when I doubt and look to other things to fill me. I serve a good God, but he's ways are not my ways. He allows evil and suffering in this world yet uses it for His good plan. 

This evening after leadership I sat in a front lawn with a group of sincere college girls all in hopes of sharing our struggles and God's triumphs with a friend's little sister. I hope she heard more than just middle school stinks. I hope she heard that God has redeemed each one of us (those sharing that night) by his grace. The old has gone and the new has come because with Christ we are a new creation! But I hope she also heard that life's just hard. It's hard in middle school, it's hard in high school, it's hard in college, and it's hard in the "real world" too. That's just life...it's hard. It's messy. It's life in a fallen world. 

So let me set my eyes on eternal things that are not of this world.