Jesus is Alive - so hold TIGHT!

I’ve been listening to the song ‘Promises’ by Sanctus Real non-stop the last few days.

This song has been encouraging me a lot. Around my birthday, I always feel like I’m wasting my life. I’m 25 and I am still as unsure about my life as I was five years ago. The Lord has done so much for me, and I feel like I’m wasting the life that He’s blessed me with. I know that might sound ludicrous, but it’s the way I feel.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11; New International Version (NIV)

I’ve been thinking about this verse a lot too. It’s one of the ‘promises’ that I’ve been clinging to. God has a future for me, and I need to believe that when the time is right that He will lead me to that future.

“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” -Romans 8:35-39; The Message (MSG)

That’s a crazy thought, isn’t it? Here I am worried that I’m wasting my life but why would Jesus fight and die for me if I wasn’t important? If I wasn’t someone special who was going to do something special. I mean, I wouldn’t fight or die for someone who I didn’t love or think was going to change the world.

When I think of it like that and all the times that I could/should have died, I know that the ‘promise’ must be true.

That encourages me and makes me happy. It gives me hope, that maybe I can make it through this crazy topsy-turvy adventure that some call life.