Hardship

I didn't want to write about hardship, because all the hardships I've been through sucked. But I suppose that's kinda the point, and because it's been assigned I guess I can't really skip it.

Scanning hardship files...

Hardship: a condition that is difficult to endure; suffering; deprivation; oppression

God is good. In fact, he's really awesome. He actually broke a sea into two parts so people could walk through it without getting wet, and then he put it back together, drowning the bad guys. I don't know about you guys, but I would have trouble doing that. Even Eragon wouldn't be able to do that very well, and he's a fictional character. God is so awesome, he can't be copied. But that's beside the point, this blog post is supposed to be about hardship, not a fictional character.

But maybe it's not beside the point at all. Maybe God's greatness has everything to do with hardship. I'll let you figure that one out on your own, but I'll warn you, if you figure anything out, it's only by the grace of God.

Let me help you out. The Hebrews were stuck in Egypt for 400 years. I don't care who you are, 400 years is a long time to be stuck someplace, even if you're not a slave. And I'll remind you, this was after the flood, and after the flood God shortened the lifespan of humans to a limit of 120 years. There are scientific arguments for how this could have happened, related to scientific arguments about how the flood could have covered the whole earth, how earth could have never had seasons before the flood, and how earth survived for 1500 years before rain was even imagined. But once again, I'm getting sidetracked. I'm a pro at that. I feel like the gal in the Progressive commercials. ANYWAY...

So the Hebrews were stuck in Egypt. This was tough for them. Think of the founding fathers. They rebelled against England simply because they weren't being represented well enough and were being treated unfairly. The slaves in Egypt had it even worse. They had no representation at all, and they were also being treated unfairly. But skip ahead a few pages, or chapters, if you will. See that God led them out of Egypt, and even though they were not very appreciative, he led them to the promised land. And he did this through a fellow who had once been more Egyptian than Hebrew, and had married a woman who worshiped false gods. (She was converted, I'm sure.)

And if that's not cool enough, God did the same kind of thing 3800 years later, and now slavery is considered the signature of a savage nation. Now we have people saying we can't even use animals like slaves. I think they took it too far there, I mean, the same God who freed the slaves also gave men the right to use the animals wisely, but I think you get my point.

Hardship really does suck, but it looks like it's a lot easier to handle when God is on your side. I mean, if God be for us, who can be against us? Who would really want to be?

I didn't cite any references here, but if you'd like to learn more, check my information, find inconsistencies in my text, or whatever, I would recommend you purchase a Bible and read it... the story about the Hebrews is in the end of Genesis, beginning of Exodus.