Do you ever get those moments in life when you feel like you've fallen off a 10 storey building and landed on the pavement below? Do you ever go through those moments and wonder where God is, and why He isn't helping? I get those moments every day and I often find myself discouraged in my walk with God.

I look back over my life and I see nothing, absolutly nothing, but the hand of God. I look back and see 30 years of absoloute torture, tourment, grief, pain, depression, and hopelessness; but I see God. I see His unfailing faithfulness, His limitless provision, His loving chastisment, and His unexplainable grace. I deserve none of it, but it's all been given to me and I can't give it back. I don't want to give it back because I need it. Without it I wouldn't even be here today.

But I still find myself bewildered. Why do I have to wait until now to see and know God's provsion, protection, strength and love? Why can't I see it when it's being given. We live in a fools paradise, where we never have enough and the grass is always greener on the other side. So even when God's beautiful gifts and faithfulness are there, active in our lives, we fail to see them for all of the other things that could be better. Well that's just not good enough for me. I want to see now, as it's happening.

I tend to live a life full of intense and irrational emotions. My head tells me that someone doesn't love me when really they do, in fact it couldn't be more obvious that they do. My head tells me I want things, that I know in my spirit I don't, and torments me with the fact that I can't have them. I spend most of my free time sedated to aviod or survive the intensity of my life. Really not nice, and what's worse is, I just can't seem to get God to help.

Sounds a little bitter hey? But I know the truth (which sets me free) and that is that God is helping me, which means that I'm just not seeing it. I'm not content to wait 5 or so years before I come out of this little hell hole that I'm in and finally see that God was there all along. I want to see Him now, in my hell hole. James says,

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him (1:5).

So I figure that I need a little wisdom to recognise God in those times of deep distress. I know that when I'm having an emotional meltdown I struggle to see the forest for the trees so I took James' advice and I asked God to remind me during my next meltdown, to stop and look for Him.

I know that "faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass" (1 Thess. 5:24), and I was blessed to experience that truth. God was faithful and reminded me and enabled me, during the worst moment of my day, to stop and watch as He broke my fall. Yes the emotions, urges, frustrations, guilt and pain, were on the verge of intolerable; but as I stop and looked, I realised something. It wasn't that my pain levels had risen, but that my tolerance leves had decreased.

For those that don't understand how tolerance thresholds work, allow me to give a brief and uneducated explaination.

Tolerance Thresholds
Lets take drinking as an example:

When you start drinking alcohol, your'e a one pot screamer (or one glass for some). This means that it doesn't take much alcohol before you get drunk. Your body doesn't know what to do with it so it take a long time to process it and get rid of it. Meanwhile your flat on your back and the world is spinning.

As you spend the next 'so many years' drinking alcohol you discover that you can drink half a bottle shop before you find your place on the floor. This happens because your body has learned to process the alcohol more quickly and efficently and thus you can handle more drink before passing out. The outcome is the same but the quantity is very different. The more you drink over time the more your body can tolerate.

The same process occurs in the reverse if you stop drinking alcohol. Over time, with reduced consumption, your body finds it hard to cope with the amount of alcohol you used to drink. You still get drunk, but much quicker!

The moral of the story is...
More alcohol + higher tolerance = bad
Less alcohol + lower tolerance = good

Back to my story...
So. This is what the wisdom of God showed me that day.
The outcome of my emotional turmoil was just as painful as it has ever been, but it took less triggers to get me there. This may not sound like a good thing. In fact it sounds like it would make life more difficult. But what I saw was that Iife is actually getting better!  My body and mind arn't having to deal with as much stress as they used to so my tolerance to the higher degrees of stress has reduced...thus I feel pain even when the 'quantity' isn't as bad.

Less quantity may = same pain...but in the long run, less and less quantity means eventually less and less (actual) pain. The feeling I get from the trigger will always be the same but the triggers are smaller. To me this means that although things look and feel as bad as ever, they actually arn't!!

The moral of my story is...
More stress + higher tolerance = bad
Less street + lower tolerance = better

Right in the middle of what felt like a repeat of my 'groundhog day' life, I realised that God was breaking my fall, day after day, after day. I encourage you to ask for wisdom to see Him breaking your fall, everyday.

"Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find"
Matthew 7:7


Listen to Jeremy Camp - Breaking my fall