The grass ain’t always greener.
Looking back at the past can often look different depending on the stage of life that you are in. A few years ago, I could only see the bad and the ugly of the last ten years. Circumstances and people in my life changed so much during that time, and for a while it was so hard to view that with any sort of positive lens. I disliked myself, and that affected just about everything.
It wasn’t until maybe fall of 2022 that things started to click for me, and I gained something I was lacking before: perspective. Perspective is the filing cabinet of life, it’s what helps you store away different memories, knowledge, and experiences in the right places. File them away in the wrong spot, and you end up with a warped worldview.
The bad isn’t always so bad.
When we’re in the thick of it, sometimes we look back in retrospect, and in the moment all we see is the bad. But reality is often far more complex and multi-faceted than we think it is. We learn more, we grow in wisdom, maturity, EQ, IQ, and we get further down the road and realise, “You know what, there was some good in that, too.”
INTERMISSION:
Because I know y'all are definitely interested, you should know that as I'm writing this I'm also listening to the Nintendo 3DS Settings Music (1 Hour Version). Thank me later 😛
Nintendo 3DS Settings Music (1 Hour)
I often turn the page on a chapter and can have a tendency to write off the last chapter as a waste, or see only the flaws and how things went wrong, and view the next chapter as the opposite. But life is often more grey than simply black and white. That’s not to say things are relative–by no means; but we learn and grow, and over time, we can begin to see the good out of the bad, and for better or worse, some of the bad out of the good.
I’ve learned that in every season, God is at work behind the scenes. There are times where things seem to be going terribly, and often I find in that that God is faithfully taking the broken mess that I’ve made and using it for my good and His glory. That is, He takes my mistakes, my sin, my missteps, all of it, and by His grace gives us the chance to take hard-learned lessons and scars with us into the next chapter. If we are willing, He can use the bad to redeem those parts of our stories that seemed irredeemable. And with time and perspective through the grace of God, sometimes we can look back and see the blessings and gifts that God brought out of a time we used to think was wasted, and find that God never wastes anything that we give to Him. No amount of bad is ever wasted that is brought to and surrendered at the foot of the cross.
The good isn’t always so good.
Rose coloured glasses are distorted. Selena Gomez said it well, and it’s the unfortunate reality of looking in retrospect. Not everything is as good as we thought it was at the time, and that’s okay. But part of growing older and wiser means that we see things sometimes with a clearer lens, and sometimes the clearer lens causes us to see some of the rubble that we brushed aside, and the missteps we swept under the rug. Looking back makes us more aware–and sometimes painfully so–that in some of the good, there was sometimes some bad, too.
Sometimes we don’t realise in the moment that a situation or relationship isn’t good for us. And what we view as a really great thing in the moment, sometimes is later revealed in character or beliefs formed during that time,
But the grass is always greener…
We can spend our whole life looking at the other side and wondering what is better, but sometimes we reach it to find out, it’s not everything we imagined it was. And that okay. Sometimes life doesn’t live up to our expectations. Things happen, and circumstances change, and things that seemed so certain can so easily be thrown upside down. Those of you that have been tubing know what I’m talking about.
But God doesn’t take holidays. Good, bad, He’s right beside us in all of it, asking to be let in on our life choices. The phrase, “the grass is greener on the other side” is not always true. It has been rephrased to say, “the grass is greener where you water it,” and I think that’s a fair statement, there’s a lot of truth to that. But through it all, what I’ve found to be most true is that the grass is always greener at the foot of the cross. Life with Jesus is kinda the best.
the grass ain’t always greener–but that’s just fine!
Be patient in withered fields, where it seems like nothing is growing. It’s in rocky places that hardy plants grow. A good life is not always the easy life. A hard life is not always a bad life.
Be faithful where you are, and walk forward step-by-step in faith, and as you walk forward in the love of Christ, we’re filled with the Holy Spirit. John 7:38 says this:
‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
There’s a song by Chris Renzema that I’ve been listening to a lot lately called Fountain. And in the bridge lies a prayer that says “Spring up a well.” I hope that will be our prayer this week, that God would spring up a well of living waters in us.
So maybe that’s the takeaway from all of this: when we walk with Jesus, the things of this world are brought into clarity. The chaos of our life starts to make sense. The lows aren’t as low because He is with us. The highs pale in comparison to the joy of knowing Him. Jesus told us that in this world we would have trouble, but that we can take heart because He has overcome the world.
maybe the grass is greener than we think it is, right where we are.
And if that’s true, then maybe the other side isn’t really worth worrying about.
The Treehouse 