“So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.” Colossians 1:9-10 NLT

 Life is full of struggles, isn’t it? We struggle to get along with the people we love most. We struggle to understand what makes them tick and we struggle to know how to interact with them and improve our relationships. We struggle to keep our finances in order, to make sure our bills are paid and to use money wisely. We struggle to make sense of the complicated and chaotic world we live in. So much occurs that is beyond our ability to understand. How do we handle all this struggle well? 

Knowing God is the secret sauce for a life that makes sense. Knowing Him produces a different kind of life. Knowing God is the key to understanding what to do and how to do it. 

 Struggling in relationships? Know God better and He will guide you into better relational patterns. God’s Word is full of relationships. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is full of relational examples, what to do and what not to do. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel right at the beginning in Genesis demonstrate how relationships can be full of tension and heartbreak. Through the Old Testament there is the theme of relationship, how to have a relationship with God and with other humans. Very few Old Testament people did any of that well. Like you and me. At least we are in good company. 

But when Jesus came He simplified the whole thing. He boiled it down to one key concept: Love God by loving people. If you listen, you’ll hear that message ringing out through all the Gospels and every letter of the New Testament, regardless of the author. Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22: 27-40) This is how they know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:35) Love your enemies. (Matthew 5: 44) We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19) Love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8). Over and over it comes back to love. Simple. NOT EASY!

This simple, not easy concept has reshaped my approach to every relationship. Especially the most difficult ones. God demonstrated His love for sinful people by sending Christ to die and pay the penalty for sin on our behalf. (Romans 5:8) If that is the way that God loves me, then that is the way I need to love others. The question I find myself asking in difficult relationships is this: What does love look like in the situation? Sometimes it is speaking up, but sometimes it is saying nothing and demonstrating an attitude of love. I can totally disagree with someone’s lifestyle and still love them. I just need to know which hills are worth dying on. The only uncompromisable issues are the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the inerrancy of the Word of God.  Most of the time that means a lot of listening. Listening is love in action, you know. 

If you keep your spiritual eyes and ears open God will guide you in your relationships through His Word and through His Holy Spirit within you. 

Struggling financially? Know God better and He will guide you into better financial habits. According to an article at Forbes.com, money is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible and is the second-most referenced topic. At the heart of all the Biblical references is this idea: Put God first in your financial life and everything else will fall into place. Really, it goes back to the simple theme of loving God and loving people. We demonstrate our love for God by how we use the financial resources He has provided. The tithe demonstrates our love for God. Then, once our own needs are met (notice the word needs, not wants) how we use the rest of our money becomes a demonstration of loving God by loving people. Giving to the church, other mission organizations and even individuals become an expression of love for God. It is so cool!

As we have been more diligent to make our financial decisions in line with God’s Word, He has totally transformed our financial situation. When we finally became “allergic” to debt and started to diligently eliminate it, God provided for us in unexpected ways and now we are debt-free and have a healthy emergency fund. God did that for us in a short period of time, but it took a long time to make some of the shifts we needed to make. It is difficult to describe how grateful and amazed I am at what God has done. It’s taken some decisions on our part, but God continues to overwhelm us with His provision. There are plenty of Biblical financial resources out there. Here are a couple to try: Crown Financial Ministries; Ramsey Solutions

Struggling emotionally? Know God better and He will help you to process your emotions in a healthy way and bring you to a place of peace.  There are plenty of examples in the Bible of people who do not process their emotions in a healthy way. PLENTY! I am not even going to start listing names because, basically, every major or minor character in the Bible messes up emotionally proving that they are, in fact, humans. But then, there are the rarer examples of humans who process their emotions in God’s presence, like King David. David wrote many of the poems we call the Psalms as a way to process his emotions with God. The other psalm writers do the same thing and, man, some of those psalms are really raw! But the bottom line is that even the most ugly emotions were not hidden from God, they were processed with God. 

I have found so much encouragement in the Psalms to be completely honest with God. He can handle exactly how I am feeling, not matter how ugly it is. And the amazing thing is that as I bring all that ugly to God, the peace comes, not in the resolution of whatever is causing the ugly, but in the resolution of expressing it to Him. His presence is what brings me peace. I’ll take that over a trouble-free life without Him any day. 

 Growing in God is process, Dear Friend, and we grow through the struggles. The purpose of knowledge and wisdom is to know God better and it takes time to develop those. The result of knowing God better is a life that produces every kind of good fruit, a life that always honors and pleases God, to have the wisdom and judgement to know how to respond in any given situation so that God will be honored. That is the highest goal of the Christian life, to live in a way that points to Christ. To give Him honor and glory.

So, whatever your struggle, strive to know God in it and He will produce in you a life that brings Him glory. That’s the only life that makes sense. 

Key Thought: Knowing God better produces a different kind of life. 

A Scripture to Consider: “So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.” Colossians 1:9-10 NLT

A YES Challenge: Is your biggest struggle relational, financial or emotional right now? What steps can you take to know God better in the midst of it?

Prayer: Dear Lord, I have often asked you to take away my struggles rather than looked at them as a way to know You better. Help me to change my approach. Help me to look for ways to know you better in the midst of my struggle. Produce a different kind of life in me as I know You better. Give me the wisdom and understanding to know how to live through my struggles in a way that honors You. Amen.