“and when you cannot trace God’s hand, you can trust His heart.”

charles Spurgeon

I’ve been contemplating a lot about the human experience. I’ve seen it in all its beauty and all its horribleness. I’ve seen love so divine and so touching so willing to do anything for its object and I’ve seen that same love turned into pain fired back to it’s owner piercing all in its pathway leaving only brokenness behind.

I’ve seen connections spark right off the first conversation and grow into more and I’ve seen relationships that had been tended to with years of practice, fall into nothingness.

I’ve seen beauty rise out of the ashes and I’ve seen greatness crumble to a shell of what it once was.

Basically what I’m saying is, I’ve seen the best of the good and the worst of the bad. Through it all, I’ve noticed how they have a way of grasping your whole focus. Every new (and old) human experience, shifts the way you view things, the world and all therein.

As the external world changes, the internal rearranges itself to adapt. Such is the human experience. So severe in its might!

Through all this, there’s one constant, one who remains unchanging, Christ. He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. Cheering you on through the beauty of the human experience and holding you up through its horribleness. Through the ever changing mass, he stays the same.

An anchor. Our anchor.

Through it all, Jesus has given Himself to us. To keep us grounded during the storm. To give us peace despite our external circumstances. He yearns for us to keep our focus on Him and not on all the transience that continually surrounds us. Then, and only then, can we be truly joyous despite this human experience.

He tells us in Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, “rejoice.” Jesus says this in full knowledge of the human experience, having gone through it Himself. He understands it more deeply than I or you ever could, but He still says Rejoice! He does so, because He knows it’s possible. It is possible to be joyous when all around you is falling apart, when you’re hurting due to heartbreak, when your days are filled with so much bad news that you almost despair, when you think to yourself “what is the point of the human experience?” Dear friends, it is possible.

Indeed it is. The writer of the hymn bids us to turn our eyes upon Jesus and, when we do so, all the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. When we focus solely on Christ, the severeness and intensity of the human experience slowly dims until it’s but a gray light and the glory and grace of Our Anchor is on full display. His joy and peace become ours and we can partake of it as long as we behold Him.

We feel the presence of our ever loving and all powerful Friend. His comfort and companionship are so great that through the good and bad human experience we can proclaim like Paul, Rejoice! Not because our lives aren’t as complicated as they were meant to be, dare I add, but because we have a Saviour who simplifies it all.

Dear friends, I don’t know which part of the human experience you’re going through now but through it all I want you to remember, Someone’s got your back. And He is the most powerful Being in the Universe, so trust. You’re in good hands.

Onwards and upwards, dear hearts!

with love, w.