Are You Okay?

Are you okay mom? That is becoming a regular question around my home lately as my daughter is noticing that I have just not been myself. Many days, I feel as though I am losing the battle with fear, discouragement and condemnation. Struggles I long believed to have gained victory over have returned to the surface of my heart and mind with a vengeance, often leaving me weak and overwhelmed.

In these moments, every well meaning yet ultimately fruitless piece of advice I have been given over the years begins to run through my mind:

“When the battle is hardest, that is when you must press in to take hold of your victory”.

“You just need to read the Word more.”

“There is a lesson to be learned in this.”

“Maybe you have opened a door to the enemy.”

“I know a formula to break free from the curse you are under.”

“You should take this program, it worked when I was struggling.”

“You wouldn’t be facing this much opposition if you were not heading in the right direction.”

“It is a timing thing.”

“You need to change your heart.”

“If God was going to do it, he would have done it by now.”

And on and on the list goes. The result? I am confused and even more hopeless than I was to begin with. Is there some truth to these words? Perhaps. But I know one thing to be true: when I begin working myself into a frenzy to try and find the solution, I end up frustrated and, often times, angry with God for not coming to my rescue.

When I think He should be speaking clearly, He remains silent. When I seek answers, I am faced with more questions. When I believe my answer is on the way, I am met with yet another season of waiting. The days, months and years pass and still I am left longing for a breakthrough that seems more unattainable now than it ever has.

I don’t need Sunday school answers. I will not be set free by a formula. Answers offered in these times are often offered only because there is nothing else to say.

What do I need?

I need to wrestle with God. I need to ask the difficult and painful questions and find out if I am content with never getting the answers I am looking for. I need to face my fear. I need to look years of guilt and regret in the face and decide if I will continue to dwell or pick up and move on.

I need to settle in my own heart the issue of the goodness of God. If I never get what I long for, is God still good? Has he allowed me to waste ten years of my life hoping and waiting for a promise that was never mine to have? Is He truly willing to take the rubble of my life and turn it into something worth living for? Or has He withheld everything good from me?

I need to stop looking to people to fix me. I am not broken. I am not a project. I am a child of God. I struggle. I fail. I cry. I doubt. I judge. I quit. I screw up. And deep down, I hope.

I hope that I have not fallen too far to be redeemed. I hope that despite appearances and the opinions of others, my dreams will still come true. I hope that all the waiting and trying and struggling have not been in vain. I hope that breakthrough, as far off as it seems, has not eluded me.

Am I okay? As long as I never quit wrestling, I will always be okay.

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Where’s the Shortcut?

Trials produce perseverance. Despite the pain they often cause, trials have immeasurable value when it comes to growing into the person you are destined to become. There are no short cuts to true spiritual maturity for God knows that it is only by walking through the fire, one step at a time, that the worthlessness of the world will be burned away.

Knowing that does not necessarily change the way we see trials in life or the way we approach them. Sometimes, knowing that good will come from what we are going through is not enough to keep us there. We get uncomfortable and we hide. We run. We deny. We escape. We do whatever we can think of to avoid the pain. Then, when we emerge from hiding, we are no further along than we were when we started and we have not allowed the trial to serve the purpose God had for it.

So, if knowing that you are developing perseverance in the storm does not help you see the hope in the depth of the pain, consider that you are also on the path to personal revival and awakening. If you are anything like me, you would love to be able to fly past the painful part right into the season of new life. But the old must pass away before the new can be born.

Allow the sickness in your family to rid you of your tendency to blame God and lean on your own self sufficiency. If you will be open to the work of Holy Spirit, He will create in you complete dependence on and faith in God.

Do not grow discouraged by the loved one you are praying for who seems to walk further and further away from God. Allow your desire to see them come to know Him to drive you to your knees in desperation and renewed hope when it would be easier to quit.

Allow a bleak financial situation to open your eyes to the truth: He is your provider. Look not to what you can do on your own, but to what He has given you and what He is able to do in, for and through you.

A difficult marriage is not an excuse to give up and walk out. You have been given an opportunity, through the power of Holy Spirit, to relinquish your rights and demonstrate a selfless love so rarely seen in marriage today. He can breathe new life into a dead and barren relationship.

In the midst of your crisis, take a step back, breathe and see it for what it really is: an invitation to come up higher in your relationship with God and to dive down deeper into the knowledge of Him.

There is only one way to get there. You can not go over, under or around. You must go through.

 

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I Just Don’t Want To!

Revival starts in me. That much I know to be true. I understand that if I desire to see a great move of God in my nation, I must seek Him in my own life first. I must be willing to rid myself of everything that would set itself up against the work He longs to do and be willing to surrender all I am and all I have to pursue Him. Nothing held back.

But sometimes I just don’t want to. Like today. Today I am tired and weary and discouraged. My soul has grown listless in the battle and my flesh is screaming to me to give in and give up. I am tempted to do exactly that. To take just a few days and quit contending. Quit pursuing. Quit seeking. Quit hoping. Quit believing. Quit trusting. Just quit.

Is the fight really worth it after all? Would I really be missing out on much if I chose to be happy with the amount of God I have now and stopped pressing in for more of Him?

Is lukewarm alright once in a while?

I would certainly like to think so on days like today.

Then I am reminded of David. David who, like me, was faced with the drudgery and difficulty of daily life in the midst of a relationship with a phenomenal God. David, who was faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances. David, who was a man after God’s own heart and yet felt far from and forsaken by Him.

Knowing God did not exclude David from the struggles of humanity. He still felt alone, rejected, fearful and hopeless at times. He was powerful and anointed and yet He struggled. He had seen God move mightily countless times and yet he grew discouraged. Throughout the Psalms, I hear David expressing the pain of his heart.

And then I hear him talk to himself. Why are you downcast, my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God. Praise Him. Remember what He has done and who He is. Rise up!

In my own soul, the battle begins again. My spirit is stirring, reminding me never to give in. Never forget. Never relent. Press in! Rise up! Your breakthrough is coming! And I start talking to myself.

I remind myself of what He has done. I recall how far he has brought me. I praise Him because He is faithful. I thank Him because His works are wonderful. I place my hope in Him because He is worthy.

I engage in battle because the spoils are of infinite worth.

Weary of the fight today? Start talking to yourself.

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