What if “wanted to” or “felt like it” were taken off the table, and the only option was “had to”?

That was the question going through my mind as I woke up this morning. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do with it, and I’m still not sure. But I sit here right now seeing how full my life is of “wanted to” and “felt like it”, and how many lives around me are filled with “have to”. People wrestling with cancer and illness. They don’t get a choice about chemo or other types of therapies. Families struggling to put food on the table don’t get a choice of what to have for dinner. Lives filled with things that have to be done…to survive…to help someone else or themselves  just get through a single day. How many of us know hearts and ears that are questioning the words from John 16:33?

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

Peace.

That’s were my eyes keep going back to as I read those words over and over again. So many lives around me are filled with anything put peace. Pain. Anger. Doubt. Numbness. Struggle. Hmm. That reminds me of a quote I heard last night on Jeopardy from Frederick Douglass, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Really? I look at a dear friend, wrestling with cancer, and I wonder where is the progress, Lord? Another friend and family making their way after the loss of a wife and mother. Their lives are filled with things they have to do. Lives filled with struggle, with trouble in one form or another. Then there is Jesus, telling me, you, them, “take heart!”. In the King James, the wording is “be of good cheer”. From The Message – “be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace.” Really? How?

WOW! Ding, ding, ding, ding!

I’ve been thinking of the “have to” things as bad things, things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Yet, and honestly, none of us like hearing this, it is the “have to” things that often bring us closest to Christ. It’s like those “have to” things are the camel going through the eye of the needle. I wish there were other ways. I wish Christ’s voice was as loud in my life when it is filled with “wanted to” and “felt like it.” Yet, when I have no other choice, Christ is still there, waiting patiently.

May there come a day, maybe not until our eternal lives, when we look back and rejoice at the “have to” moments. Those very moments when God felt distant, when we questioned God, were angry at God, doubted God…those moments are not lost. May the moments of our deepest sorrows and anger and doubt be the very ones from which we sing our greatest praise.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28