P.S. It's Gonna Be Good - How God's Word Answers Our Questions About Faith, Fear and All the ThingsMuestra

The Answers Are (Literally) In The Palm Of Your Hands

You know that saying “Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel”?

We might’ve been doing just fine, but then we hop on Instagram and start scrolling past people with their big platforms and houses, flashy jobs and sculpted bodies. While we’re over here with an inner tube around our stomach, going to a job that barely pays the bills, and looking around at our messy home, messy bun, messy life . . . well, it doesn’t take much or long to feel just a tad jealous.

But guess what? That comparison trap isn’t limited to just social media, your friends, or the Joneses down the street. We can trip over the same thing every time we open the Bible.

Like when Joshua prays for the sun to stand still, and it actually does?
Peter asks Jesus to let him walk on water, and he in fact gets to?
Elijah calls fire to fall from heaven, and he lives to tell the tale?

Pit that against our ordinary days, and it’s hard to imagine, right?

While we’re washing dishes, David’s slaying giants. While we’re grumbling over a workout, Deborah’s leading a charge into battle. And while we’re struggling over our kid’s homework (which, P.S. Please Jesus, never take us back to the throes of distance learning), Paul’s penning half the New Testament . . . in prison . . . with JOY. #yougottabekiddingme

I’m sorry, but THESE are supposed to be our examples? Like for regular, average, modern-day people?

Yep.

And God, all-knowing as He is, knew we’d question it. So James nipped it in the bud: “Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!” (James 5:17).

Here’s the deal: If we took the time to become familiar with Bible heroes’ backstories before zeroing in on their highlight reels, maybe we wouldn’t be so surprised after all. Maybe we’d in fact recognize that same fear, doubt, discouragement, and overwhelming stress we feel was also felt by these Bible characters.

Furthermore, when we watch how God moved, what He said, and what He promised, maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions when we’re sitting in the middle of our story either. Maybe we’d instead decide to hang on, confident Romans 8:28 will come to pass in our lives too, and wait expectantly for our faithful God to show up. You in? Me too—let’s dive in.