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"Life is here, all around you and inside you, a succession of astonishments" Leonard Sweet

A while ago before my life changed in so many ways I wrote.................

"I want to live a BIG life - a life that matters, and by its living reaches out to others with a glimpse of what a God-filled life can be. I want my life to be full of everything that God has for me - all the opportunities, challenges, questions and answers.

So why then when I am faced with Jesus' invitation to live 'life in all its fullness' do I constantly only see half the picture? Why do I expect that life in all its fullness means everything should be great - or at least in some way getting a bit 'better', and that if life isn't great, that I have in some way missed the 'fullness' bit?

I don't think I'm on my own here - I've seen loads of people fall into this trap and go searching for a way of escaping the hard times - escape by denial or blame, or ignoring, or moaning, or simply running away from situations that seem to be sending us into a difficult place. But actually I can't see that God ever promises that life will be easy.........

Surely a life of 'fullness' is just that - a complete life, a real life, a full life, a big life, and that type of life inevitably brings good times, hard times, answers and questions, completeness and emptiness and all kinds of other things besides.

It's in the empty, messy, perplexing times when God asks the really hard questions - do you trust me now, or do you only trust me when life is good and you have all the answers?"

2 years and many 'astonishments' later, some thrilling, others really tough - I still wouldn't have it any other way..............

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