The Hard Good: Showing Up for God to Work in You When You Want to Shut DownSample

Accepting What God Does and Doesn’t Do in Your Life

Absence and presence. Loss and gain. Deep pain and deep love. Living in the tension of the hard good. This is how I felt, gathered with loved ones, but missing my daddy who had died two years earlier. Since I was little, it was my daddy who told me I could do anything, and he assured me Jesus would help me do it. He was right. I’m doing something very hard: laughing and loving and accepting a life without him. I wish he could see me now. 

It is common to have a hard time accepting something or someone we wish were different. When we react out of the pain in our hearts against someone or some circumstance, we turn the knife against ourselves. At some point, we need to stop hurting ourselves if we are going to live freely and enjoy the good God has for us. We need to let go, especially the need to know, to reach the important place of acceptance. It’s transformational when we let go of something that has gripped us. We are taking power back from the endless question marks punctuating our lives. 

Accepting what God does and doesn’t do in our lives means we don’t expect our lives to be perfect. We can be okay with less than perfect by our standards. At the core, acceptance of anything can almost always be traced back to some level of acceptance of ourselves. God loves you as much as someone else, but maybe you haven’t accepted you, or God loving you, and that has blocked all other acceptance. Everything you struggle to accept in your life will be easier when you believe God loves you. It is nearly impossible to accept life if you do not first accept being purposefully born into it and if you believe you can’t live in the tension of being loved versus feeling loved.

Acceptance also comes with the ability to believe that something can be both hard and good at the same time. If you want to have a usable, powerful life, you have to begin to accept its nuances. Sometimes you will be close to God, and at the same time, you will still struggle with human feelings. Sometimes you will be mad at your circumstances and feel grateful to still be alive. And this goes for others too. Give them the grace you give yourself to be living the reality of more than just one thing.

Acceptance of a new person in our lives can be a place where God is able to greatly use us. It may be a step-parent, a new pastor, a new spouse, or a new normal in an existing relationship. Trust God to know what you need. Of course, healthy boundaries are important, but acceptance is often about letting go of offenses. Acceptance lets us progress forward, dream, live, serve God, and love other people. Though acceptance is hard, it is a powerful good that God can use in your life to shape you.

Respond

How have you experienced “hard good” in your life?

How does accepting yourself and God’s love for you transform how you look at your life?

In the context of healthy boundaries, how are accepting others and letting go of offenses part of shaping you to be used by God for good?