John 10:10

Liz Dumain

I want to live a BIG life - a life that matters and by its living, reaches out to others with a glimpse of what an adventure a God-filled life can be. I want my life to be full of everything that God has for me - all the opportunities, challenges, questions and answers.

So why when I am faced with Jesus' invitation to live 'live life in all it's fullness" do I constantly only see half the picture. Why do I constantly expect that life in all it's fullness means that everything should be great - or at least in some way getting a bit 'better' - and that if my life isn't great - in some way I have missed the 'fullness' bit? Why do I praise God more in the great times than the hard times?

I don't think I'm on my own here - I've seen loads of people fall into this trap and go searching for a way of escaping the hard times. Escape by denial, or blame or ignoring or moaning, or simply running away from situations that seem to be sending us into a difficult place. But actually I can't see that God ever promises that life will be easy - so surely a 'life of fullness' is actually just that - a complete life, a real life, a full life, a big life and that kind of life inevitably brings good times, and hard times, answers and questions, completeness and emptiness and all kind of other things besides...

It's in the empty, messy, perplexing times when God asks the really hard questions - do you trust me now, or do you only trust me when life is good and you have all the answers? It's in these times when I need to be able to join in & say "Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine & though the olive crop fails & the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen & no cattle in the stalls - yet I will rejoice in the Lord" (Habakkuk). That's a big life: when humanly things are rubbish, to be able to say that I will still trust God... and I will...and I do...and to be able to do that - there lies true 'life in all its fullness'.