It's A Hard-Knock Life

It's A Hard-Knock Life

"It's the hard-knock life for us! It's the hard-knock life for us! 'Steada treated, We get tricked! 'Steada kisses, We get kicked! It's the hard-knock life!"

You might recognize the above lyrics from a song in the musical Annie where the orphans sing about how their life is typically just the opposite of what blessed people's are. It seems sad, but some of our lives have also been one hard knock after another, and it can make us feel like maybe we are just cursed, or that God must not love or support us in life the same way that He does with other people. Satan will also be right there to point out every apparent failure throughout your life and how you shouldn't bother hoping for anything better in your future because God is just obviously not for you, like He is for others who He favors more.

^{LA 3:19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20 I well remember
them, and my soul is downcast within me.
There may come a time around the end of your wilderness where the Lord will allow you to see your
life more clearly, and how He deliberately allowed certain things to happen in your life that could seem a bit unfair. But
God only allowed these things to shape your character and to prepare you for your future work. There are a number of people
in the bible that also had less than stellar beginnings that went on to later do great things for God. So why would God purposely
limit and restrict our life, and what benefit does it serve to hold us back when everyone else around us seems to be able
to succeed and progress in life more effectively?
1. To humble us. The more spiritual riches we seem to get in life, the more humility we will need
to keep it from going to our head and corrupting our hearts with pride. You see, God knows exactly what to add to our lives
in order to help to keep us truly humble and meek.
2. To make it easier to surrender our future life to God. The less you have to give up, the easier
it is to give it up. People with more established careers, relationships, talents, and bank accounts, typically have a much
harder time giving them up when the time comes.
3. To shape our character. God wants to build as much love, experience, and compassion in us as possible
so that we can be more effective servants later on. Even Moses had to live in the wilderness for forty years before he was
assigned to lead the Israelites through it.
HEB 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance,
obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
Everything you may have done so far in your life may have all just been acts of faith meant to lead
you to your promise, and if that promise came from God it will test you over and over again to the point where you may even
just want to throw it away now. Sometimes faith may hurt even more than doubting, but if God's promise is still alive and
living in you, then you must see it through to its birth, or you may lose your hope and get very depressed. Faith is actually
easier and better than doubt, so don't let go of your old promise. You have already sacrificed everything for God's promise
to you, so why waste that all now by giving up on it?
JDG 6:13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where
are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, `Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the
LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
Sometimes it can feel like God has not been very attentive to our life or needs because many seemingly
bad things have happened to us, but it is those very hard things that seem to shape us into the person that we become later
on, and they also lead us to the future miracle that God wants to do for us. All of your captivity can develop a heart of
compassion in you to help God set many captives free through you later on. We need to lose the attitude and look at the spiritual
altitude we have climbed up to because of God's work and the many problems and diversities that He allowed in our lives. There
is a method to all this madness.
JER 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to
harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
You may not fully understand God's plan for your life yet, but God does. So even though all you may
have seen so far is just the not so blessed part of it, don't think that things will always be this way. God has seen your
life all the way through to the end, and He definitely has plans to give you a good future as long as you cooperate with His
daily preparation, so don't throw in the towel just yet. We live in the last days full of "Joseph's" and "David's" that had
humble beginnings, but who went on to help lots of people for God. You too will be used in these last days to show forth God's
goodness and light in a very dark and fear-filled world.
1CO 4:11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are
homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when
we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.
You are not the only person in the kingdom that has had to sacrifice your life for the sake of the
gospel, or who had to endure shame, reproach, or hardships, in order to fulfill your calling. Even Jesus was despised and
rejected by people, and unfortunately it just seems to come with the territory. But all you have endured was meant to make
you more like Jesus so that people around you could receive from Him. You may have had a hard-knock life and looked like the
scum of the earth for God's sake, but try to just remember that your promise remains, and that you haven't seen the end yet.
Hang on, because good things are coming!
JOB 8:7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.}