Life often feels like an exhausting attempt to optimize away our pain. We buy into new routines, avoid difficult people, and purchase the right gear, hoping that if we just assemble the proper tools, life will be smooth sailing. But when dark valleys inevitably arrive—when the job loss happens, the diagnosis comes, or the prayer seems to go unanswered—our faith can shatter. We assume that following Jesus was supposed to make life easy, and when it isn’t, we turn cynical, feel like victims, or blameworst, walk away from God entirely under the false guilt that we simply didn’t have “enough faith.”
Mountains and Valleys | Part 4
We live in a culture obsessed with the highlight reel. We readily share our mountaintop victories—the promotions, the milestones, the idyllic family dinners—while hiding our arguments, failures, brokenness, and deep