Hills, Rocks and Thistles

 Hills.....
 don't know how you feel about them, but here are a few of my thoughts and feelings: they are fine for views, like either looking up, down or over them.

 Favorite for me, is when I'm a bit elevated and able to see multiple hills roll in front of me, showing off their peeks and valleys.

Least favorite: when I meet one out on my run! They can be so deceiving. I approach them full of gusto and confidence, assured that I'll be at the top within a few strides and hitting the decline soon after. No huff, no puff right? Wrong!!!

A few strides later I am no way near the top, but the huffin' has started, the gusto is gone and confidence is fading fast.
It soon becomes slow going, - slow motion going - and the thought of quitting is  bouncing around in my head like a ball in a pin ball machine.
                          Gone is gusto and confidence - left is will power and determination!

On the way up such hill I started thinking about John 3:16, a verse so well known and quoted by people who don't even believe in what it says: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

                                     What a fact! Whether you believe in it or not.

God gave.... the day I chose to receive Jesus, chose to say; yes, I believe Jesus is God's son, who died and rose again - that day will be forever stored in the memory chambers of my heart. What a day - what a brand new day - I walked on a cloud because my heart was light, unburdened, and guilt free.
                                                               
                                                               I was forgiven.

There was a smile on my face that wouldn't fade, oh it felt like I was flying.
Would I always feel like this?
Would my heart always be pouring out words of love and adoration for my God and Savior?
Well I wish, but life's journey is not a walk in the park - there's bound to be hills, rocks and thistles...
and then what?

The parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-9.
The sower scatters the seed and they fall in different kinds of soil:
 there's the path where the seed doesn't even get a chance to sprout
The rocky ground with shallow soil that made the seed sprout quickly, but then got scorched by the sun because there was no root.
The soil where thorns grew and ended up chocking it to death
And the good soil that ended up producing big crops.

This soil business always fascinated me when I first started out in my faith, because I wanted my heart to have good soil, but didn't know how to make it happen. I knew there was dirt in there.
                              Was it good or bad?
                               Filled with rocks and thistles?
                               Did I have any say in this matter?
                              Could I change out the dirt, fertilize it with mulch or sprinkle it with weed killer?

The quality of the soil in my heart shows up when the journey of my faith is no longer a pick-nick. When the going gets tough as they say.
                               
                            When I run in to a hill - or even a hill country! What do I do?
Do I quit? Do I decide it's too hard to go on? This God business isn't for me, it's no fun??

I wouldn't be the first one - many of Jesus followers decided it was too much. And I have seen it myself, people calling it quits. Can I relate to them? Yes and no.
My journey has brought me to places of loneliness, sadness, desert, highs and lows, I have had to choose to weed out thistles or suffocate, to keep walking or to quit.
              So yes, I can relate to 'when the going gets tough' saying. But it's a no to the quitting.

We sing so many, many songs about when times are hard : I'll praise you in the storm! Blessed be your name! Yes Lord! and etc.....
They are easy to sing when the 'sun's shining down on me' - but what songs spring from my heart the other days or seasons?

At the end of my 'hill run' thoughts returned to John 3:16 - God's gift to me.
 My gift to God is giving him praise. To love and worship him in and through whatever may come.
When I walk in a desert place, feel mistreated, lose my job, when someone I love is taken from me, or pain and sorrow cloak my heart....
                      
"Though the fig tree should not blossom - nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places."   - Habakkuk 3:17-19

                       -  no matter what, may there always be a  "Yet I Will....." in my heart!

-b