Do you ever feel like life is just “too hard”? Well, I have. Some times are like that. I have recently been thru a stretch like that. It wears you down to the point that you lose your energy, and your strength, and your enthusiasm to do anything, and probably you lose your joy.

Those times are indeed difficult! I was complaining to the Lord one time about all of the things that were going on in my life right then, and I told Him, “This is just way too much. This is too hard!” And He corrected me, “It’s hard, but it is not too hard.” And the verse scrolled thru my head, “My grace is sufficient…”

So when I told God it was “too hard”, I was basically telling Almighty Sovereign God that He didn’t know what He was doing allowing me to go thru such hard trials. When we face what He allows in our lives, He uses it to teach us and to make our faith grow, faith in his faithfulness. He never wastes the hard places when we yield them up to Him. He always uses them to transform us. Like gold in the assayer’s fire, he is refining us.

So the next time you are thinking “this is too hard,” change it to “this is hard, but I will draw on Your strength to see me thru. Use this for my good and for your glory.” Like this little flower growing and blooming right out of the concrete, our spirits can find God’s grace to bloom in the hard places.