If you don’t know this about me yet, I am a Christian. I hope I have never portrayed otherwise. Not that this changes anything. I do my best to keep my faith separate from what you read here because I never want to be biased. Christian or not, life happens to all of us. And what kind would I be if I isolated my experiences to only those who share my faith?

That being said, I would like your permission to talk about faith and Christianity in this post. A few weeks ago, I asked if you wanted me to write something for you, and I received some thoughtful ideas. This post is a response to one of them, so bear with me. If this makes you uncomfortable in any way, this might be a good place to stop reading.

Last time, I talked about the fragility of freedom without security when moving abroad. I would say it was incomplete without telling you what it has been like to go through it all with God.

James 1:2–3: “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.”

One of the fundamentals of being a Christian is believing in what defies logic. The stories passed down thousands of years ago are ones many would consider supernatural. Take the resurrection of Christ for example. How often does that happen? But that is the entire premise of our faith. We live in a natural world ruled by a supernatural God, our Father.

A little over a year ago, I would boldly call myself a Christian. But after moving here, I realized I had been a hypocrite. Do not get me wrong. I believe in the life of Jesus and that I have salvation through him. But that is where it ended. I never truly believed him for anything else. I would do things my own way and hope he blessed them. I thought I knew how to live, and that he was just the icing on the cake.

My faith was shallow and based on what is, not what could be. The Bible says faith without works is dead, but all I did was work, with a sprinkle of faith. When the only person you know in a new place is God, the hypocrisy has to die. You reach the end of yourself and realize that the only one who can help you is someone whose power defies logic.

Moving here was the pressure I needed to understand that it has never been by my own strength, and it never will be. Being a Christian does not excuse you from life’s suffering . But the difference is doing it with a God who cares deeply about every detail of your life. He wants you to know that he is and always will be your source. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you begin to enjoy the peace that comes from placing your burdens on him.

We all have a plan for how we want our lives to look. But trust me when I say that God has a better one, especially when things do not go your way. What agonizes you is not knowing what his plan is. But if you did, you would not need faith. And that, again, is the whole premise of what we believe.

For Bolu, doing it with God is not always easy, but you know there’s no better way to live.

Song of the moment – Your way‘s better by Forest Frank.

Until next time…