When you can't go on

The question seems to keep coming up this week. How do we keep going when we feel like we can't go on?

We just re-enacted some of the story of Joseph at assembly and a lot of horrible things happened to him! When Joseph’s brothers stole and ruined his lovely coat, shoved him down a well, nearly killed him, sold him into slavery and then Potiphar’s wife slandered him and put him into the jail – well it was almost too much for the children to take!

Sometimes we don’t really realise how very sad some of the lives of the heroes in the bible were, they had some really difficult times to get through. How do we deal with life when, like with Joseph, it seems to just be one struggle after another?

The bible talks a lot about ‘enduring’ when things are tough. I like this word ‘endure’ because it seems to give recognition to our struggles. Enduring is somehow hanging on in there until the final whistle blows, and that really counts for something.

Paul was no stranger to circumstances that were hard to endure. He writes of his mission trip to Asia:

 “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself... But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God . . .He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again.” 

                        

2 Corinthians 1: 8-10

Simply trying hard to get through isn’t enough. The harder you try, the more you take the responsibility on yourself to endure, and the more exhausted and resentful you will get.

As Paul experienced, often people find themselves in situations that are simply too hard to be endured. Often it’s not until we get to that point that we realise we can’t cope and we tag God in.

But you don’t have to wait for things to get dire before you ask for God to take the reigns. Try out this rather radical adage for size: “There is no ‘try’, there is only ‘ask’.”

If you find yourself trying hard to do something, you’ve probably caught yourself doing something in your own strength. Stop trying and start asking God to do it for you . . . “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.”