We fix our eyes

Where is God when everything seems to get messed up?

Isn't God supposed to make everything go well, work it all out for us, make it easier not harder?

Where is God in the midst of our CORONA epidemic?

Oh friends, I was praying hard to get on a flight out of Nairobi and into America tonight. I've been waiting to get home to America where I could feel "safer" and more "secure"fearing, that flights are being shut down and that the borders could be closed, I wanted to be in my home bed. I wanted to be in my country of birth. I wanted to be close to my boyfriend.... but it didn't happen despite my prayers. Despite my running in the night of Nairobi panicking to get an ATM machine, despite my desperate prayers, despite my songs of trust, the flight doors slammed down a definite NO. It made me feel furious, disappointed, angry at God, it seemed unfair...

But then I realized, what kind of faith do I have if it can not withstand testing and trials?

What kind of relationship do I have with God if I only believe Him and praise Him when things are going my way?

And what about all the people praying for me? And all the promises that God's goodness and will shall be completed in my life and thru His plans for me? What about the blessings thru this struggle He's been giving me?

How should my response to my cancelled flight be different than a non-believers? How should my response to coronavirus and how I will continue to live be different than those who don't have the hope in Jesus? It should be different friends...

2 Corinthians 4:16 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Friends, we can't lose heart. We can't become jaded and discouraged like the rest of the world. Why? Because we have this hope! We have this hope that God is using these struggles, and that the light at the end of the tunnel, that the unseen glory is so much worth whatever struggle we are facing right now.

But we have to look at where we are fixing our eyes.

Are we praising, are we saying "thank you"? Or are we discouraging and focusing on the negative?

Friends, I believe God's still present. He's still Sovereign. And He's still good. And He still has beautiful and wonderful plans for my life and for your life. Do you believe He has good plans in store for you?

We have to fix our eyes on His goodness, on His good plans. We have to choose to dwell on the blessings and not the difficulties. I know it's hard. But I also know it's how we are going to overcome, it's how we are going to show the world that we are Christians with a true faith.

So tonight, as it's 3 am, and I'm stuck in the Nairobi airport, I choose to count my blessings. I am in a coffee shop where I can drink tea to help pass the time. I am safe from outside harm. I have friends and family that love me and that are covering me in prayer. I have a woman from the states who hardly knows me, yet has purchased a flight for me back to the states tomorrow. I have a loving God and I am healthy right now.

So friends, we praise Him, and we fix our eyes, not just on what we see right now.. but on heaven and what we can't see yet.