Easy Peasy

It wasn’t as bad as I thought.

You can say that about most things in life. A kid gets stitches put in. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought they would be, he says. He also says that I’m a really good doctor and deserve a promotion, but that’s besides the point.

You go through the woes of four years of medical school, and on the day of graduation, you think to yourself: that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

You finish running the marathon….not as bad as I thought.

You cook your first meal, clean your first house. Not so bad.

You give your first speech in front of a big crowd. Easy peesy lemon squeezy.

You pass your driver’s license test. Woohoo. That was a piece of cake, you think.

You have your first baby…

Ok, I’m pushing the point now!! But you get what I’m saying. Most things aren’t as bad as you think they’re going to be.

And most difficulties in life aren’t as bad in hindsight as they are while you’re going through them.

It’s true. Think about your life. What you thought was insurmountable is past history. And what you think you can’t overcome today will be a dim memory tomorrow.

What will remain is the changes that difficulty will make in you.

I look at myself in the mirror and the person I see is not the same person of a decade ago. It’s not just the gray roots I’m talking about, which by the way, aren’t really gray, just sun streaked. But the face I’m seeing is a face that has been seasoned by life. Slowly, slowly, but surely.

And I know there is much more to go. So God in His grace puts me in the crucible. Perhaps that is the strain you are feeling in your own life today too. It’s not fun in the crucible. The road seems long. The mountain too high. The heat too much to take. And whether it’s the pounding of the anvil or the depth of a crucible, it just hurts too much.

But wait. Because what you are seeing in the windshield now will soon be in your rear view mirror, and it just won’t be as bad as you thought it would be!

Here’s how the apostle Paul says it in II Corinthians 4:16 –18

“So we do not lose heart. Thought our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Today is a light momentary affliction compared to eternity with Jesus when you and I will say: It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be!!

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