This quote popped up on my memories, and I thought to myself, "Hey, I don't know what exactly you were going through this time last year, but thanks for the word 2025 Heather!" This rings so true in this current season that has me venturing into uncharted territory, and untested waters that have me hanging on for dear life some days. But through it all, God continues to remind me that even though his timing may not always feel like it, He is alongside me through every step.
Over the past few months, I have really felt a desire to experience God in a new and awe inspiring way. It is always a little humbling when God reminds me of things that I feel like I should not forget so frequently, having followed Jesus for the last 13 years. I will never experience God to the fullest extent possible in this lifetime. Only in glory one day when I get to start eternity with Him face to face will I come close to fully knowing Him. Yet, I allow myself to become so comfortable with the relationship I have with God that I begin to believe the lie that I know him as well as I can, or even worse, that there is no more of him to experience because I have lost perspective of his majesty. So, all of this to say, I have had a reinvigorated hunger for knowing God on deeper and deeper levels. We see in scripture that he will choose how much of himself he will reveal to individuals. Take Moses for example. I know for a fact I will likely never experience God to the extent he did on Mount Sinai. However, I also know that I experience God more intimately today than I did ten years ago. And this deeper connection has everything to do with the life and trials I have walked through with Him over that time. This deepening of connection does not come comfortably, but the eternal things never do, do they?
Therefore, I'm at my main point.
When we ask for closer intimacy, He may force us to become more reliant as a means to get there.
Have you ever considered that when you pray to grow in deeper relationship, closer intimacy with God, he may bring you circumstances that require you to press into him like never before? He may give you opportunities in the form of the worst trials, where you have no choice but to pray harder, listen to him more closely, read his word more often. You do these things because you know you won't get through the next day unless you do.
In these times, it is probably most understandable and most human when we just pray and pray for God to deliver us. For us to plead with God, "I know you can make this stop, so if you will please just make it STOP!" We pray for his will, but almost as if it's because it's what we know we are supposed to do, not because it is what we truly desire. Because the truth is, if we truly desire his will, we will find contentment in waiting out with grit and grip on God's hand knowing that the most grueling parts of the walk are where the eternal fruit of intimacy and Christ like character is grown.
Romans 8:28 says,
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."
Now here is one of those verses that I have heard so many times before, but God so gracefully breathed some new life into it for me this last go around Romans. When we look at the Greek word for "good" here, it is agathon; an ultimate, divine good-being conformed to Christ's likeness. Then we have the Greek word for "predestined", being proorizo; determined and decided beforehand that his called would be made more Christlike.
From these two Greek terms, we see a common reference to being made more Christlike. It's this commonality that gave me new hope for those difficult days, when I remember what this verse is saying at its core, at God's core. God already decided that this trial would make you more like Jesus, because looking more like His son is the greater goal that transcends beyond our personal comfort. Now, once I've remembered this truth, it forces me to answer this question,
How often do I pray for deliverance, when I should pray for him to remind me of this wisdom and empower me to persevere?
It's funny, it's so easy to say, "God will answer with either a no, a yes, or a not now. Even still, it is all good in his plan!"
HOWEVER. It is a slap in the face when I have to remind myself, God may say no to delivering you from this. And I can feel that. I can lament over that. But what I can't do is fall into a pity party and allow Satan and my selfish flesh to start planting seeds of doubt toward God's faithful character. It is a battle we were told we would have to fight, and it is a battle that we do have the power to win every single time, if we only press into his Spirit the way He longs for us to. In the end, we must learn to heal and endure WITH God, not simply wait for the process to be over. And we have his promise that even in the quiet, even when every logical thing and lie may tell us that He isn't there or isn't paying attention to you, He never left, and he never will.
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