"It's Good." "It's Hard." It's both. And hard to communicate!

The early part of my Christian life, I'd say I erred on the side of not sharing my sin and struggles. You know? Putting on my happy face, because after all, J is for Jesus, O is for Others and a Y,I,I,I,I,I,I is for you, you, you, as the happy song went. Now, I sometimes feel like I've "grown" in this area, and yet, now, I'm tempted to lose balance. For example, in perhaps aiming to be more transparent, I know I can sometimes grumble, gossip, whine, etc. I know we don't have to be "hard, but good" all the time people, you know when you constantly just say, "It's hard right now, but it's all good." Although there's definitely truth in that. But I need to flesh that out a bit more before I say it, without really, really meaning it. Really believing it. God IS at work in THIS, whatever this might be. Right now.

Anyway, I think Mr. Altrogge is on the right track in this article I just read. I really want to chew on this, and ask the Lord to help me in this area. I just find it tricky, and I get confused on what kind of speech and openness honors the Lord without turning into a grumbler. I'm always running from one extreme to the other, if I'm not careful. Anyway, my rambling aside, this article is a short one, but worth your time:

Bringing God Into the Equation

P.S. An afterthought here... some of the most godly people I know, who love God's Word and read it a whole bunch and love their Maker and pray to Him a whole bunch, do this really, really, really well. And suffer trials way harder than I've ever, ever, ever been asked to suffer. And they never read this article. :) I'm so thankful for models who have done this well in my life. Think about it. Don't the godliest people you know seem to strike a balance in this? They don't act like they have it all together, but they don't utterly despair when trials come. They bring God into the equation.

Thoughts?