A different person or a different approach?

I have been struggling again, nothing overly serious like previous which is great, more a little ticking of annoyance.

Whenever I sit with my cousin and chat about different things, especially my problems, being great and very understanding she always says the same annoying sentence to me "Have you prayed about it?" This time I have already been praying and what popped into my head on this instance is Daniel.

He questioned and pondered over why God didn't seem to be answering his prayers, within this quandary though, he prayed for around 20 days. Yet the more he prayed and the more he tried to get closer to God and follow the correct path nothing seemed to happen. He eventually heard from God through a vision and was comforted and rest assured in his faith. Daniel had to obviously wait, wait for the right time. This for me was a clear reminder that there is often a battle being fought that we're not always aware of, again reminding me of a tapestry, a perfect tapestry with a mess of threads on one side and a beautiful piece of work on the other.

There is often an attitude that because you have faith that everything is perfect in your life, or at least that everything should be perfect, I mean come on we have God on our side. Any Christian will know this pretence of good luck, love, happiness and wealth that is meant to follow a happy Christian, so if that is the case why oh why do we try to prove this myth when we are struggling? Why do we put on a brave face?

We should acknowledge, even in the hardest and darkest points, that we know that God will and has used these horrible situations to teach, show me more about who I am, who He wants us to be. I f we truly want to refine our character then we need to stop trying to do things under our own stubborn nature and strength.

We get dragged through these troubles sometimes kicking and screaming even of it is difficult to see whether you are being killed or being saved by the hands that turn your life upside down. Just because we are clueless in the dark, at time actually putting our hands out and feeling around, we still need to trust that everything good is happening for me and for His glory.

People close to another person struggling sees that this person is giving up and hiding. They see that the person in front of them has changed, usually through their "Christian mask" of keeping it together. From my experience though it seems to be more that for that person if it is out of sight then it is out of mind, if it isn't spoken about then therefore I don't need to live up to the truth.

When we are struggling we must remember to trust God. We might think that we are looking at the mess of our lives, a mess of threads, but take a minute to think of the tapestry on the other side, the side that God sees. We know through James 1:12 and Job 5:17 to name only a few examples that perseverance is shown and rewarded. Constantly question, are you getting closer to the world and its fears or closer to God?

Put your trust and faith in Him today, refresh if needed and find peace that settles us in our souls.