opportunity is knocking, and this time it has nothing to do with Honda

Today I was walking down the road outside my house, when it hit me, I don't really live on a hill. You see, growing up I used to always tell people that I lived on a hill when giving them directions, describing where I live, etc. This was to some degree true because it does slightly incline, so I wasn't lying, but today as I walked down the same path that I've taken for years upon years, I realized it wasn't so much of a hill after all. Now you must understand that as a skin and bones child, going up even the smallest of hills on a bicycle made it seem like a mountain. And this made me think.

No, I'm not going to spin the cliche 'making a mountain out of a molehill' as a lesson--we all have put up a wall to that cliche and probably wouldn't learn much from it if I tried. Instead, what I realized as I walked this morning was how the hill was both literally and figuratively bigger when I was smaller, but now that I've grown it is hardly a hill at all. I think that's how life is: we face situations, problems, and pain that at first take the wind out of our sails, but as we face them more often, they seem less of an issue and we are more capable to handle them.

The scripture that backs this up, James 1, was interestingly enough on my mind this morning. My cousin was telling me about James 1 yesterday, and it came up in a sermon I was listening to on the radio this morning as well. Coincidence? I think not. So the first couple of verses in James 1 go like this (starting at v.2-v.8), "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lack wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will recieve anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

What I gather from that scripture is this--first off, life sometimes sucks. We all agree on that, we've all had bad days...stuff happens. But what God's telling us is that when we feel like life sucks and all is going wrong, there is good in that. You see, the things we are confronted with will grow us in to better people if we allow them to--that is to say, the stuff you are facing is opportunity. We read books left and right on self-help, becoming a better me, etc, and I'm not saying those are bad, but just by praying for wisdom and seeking God in your negative situations, that is self-help! yay! God is trying to make us the most complete, most prepared children of His that are possible, but we have to be on His page because He gave us this awesome thing called free will where we have to let Him grow in our lives. Don't we want to become more complete/more in the direction perfect though?

So back to my image of the hill. When I was younger, I hadn't conquered the hill enough times, I didn't have mountains to compare it to, my endurance wasn't built up. Now that I have grown (in this case physically), the hill is not as big. The hill, the situation, the problem doesn't change--it's your perspective, your strength and endurance, your wisdom, and your mindset that has to change. If you'd like to become bigger than your hill, let God in your life, pray and trust for the wisdom He freely gives. Most people like free t-shirts...just think what great thing free wisdom would be. I pray you find out.