The Lighting Rods of Life

It's safe to say that the majority of us would agree that life feels like a storm more often than not. Twenty four hours never seems like enough time to accomplish all that we want in a day, and the stress of trying to do everything often feels overwhelming. Even more than that, every person carries with them something or some things that get in their way of seeing what is really important. For Christians, we tend to have a hard time seeing past our struggles and resting in the finished work of Christ. I like to think of it as a system of lighting rods. In the midst of our storm that is life, we put so much of our focus on specific lighting rods. For example, this could mean that we are caught up in the shame of our sexual pasts. Perhaps we have not forgiven our family members or ourselves for pain that happened years ago. Maybe we're currently struggling with our image and trying to perform our way into being accepted. Regardless of the struggle, we all have them, and we all know what it's like to place the emphasis in our lives on that struggle. Like a lightning rod in the storm, that specific struggle is the focal point; it absorbs us and we are unable to address it healthily. When this happens, we are unable to focus on the true lightning rod--Christ. In the midst of struggles, far to often we hyper-focus on what we're going through, and our focus is taken away from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the redemption we've experienced through his saving grace. What we must recognize is the Christ is the ultimate lighting rod! He is the one, the only one, who absorbs the storms of our lives and allows us to live burden-free, shame-free, and guilt-free. This same analogy applies to the way we do life with non-believers. Are we so focused on the small lightning rods in their lives--the things that scream to us, "NOT A CHRISTIAN," that we fail to point them to the true lightning rod, which is Christ. In the midst of our storms in life, there is only one true way out. Let us not focus so much on the struggles in life that we fail to remind ourselves and others about the one true mediator, who has made a way for eternal peace in our lives.