When You Feel Sorta Stuck in Your Faith: Unexpected Truth to Pull You Through

She’s one of my favorite people! Tara Sun is a wife, mama to two boys, author, and podcaster – lives her life with hands and heart full. Yet, she’s no stranger to the overwhelm and exhaustion that we all feel from shouldering the responsibility of daily life. That’s why she is so deeply passionate about helping other women know, love, and live God’s Word and uncomplicate what it means to put Him first in everything – the mundane, the magical, the hard, and the good – through the words she writes in books, the words she speaks through a microphone, and the words she speaks around her humble coffee table at home. It my greatest joy to welcome Tara to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Tara Sun

Some girls are camping girls and others are glamping girls. I’m unashamed to say I’m the latter.

It was 2018 and it was my husband, then boyfriend’s, family reunion, and I was invited along. Because we weren’t married, his grandparents offered their pull- out couch to me in their fancy- schmancy RV.

I was living the life— my phone plugged in, a cozy bed, and coffee set to brew when I woke up.

To this day, I am teased relentlessly about how that wasn’t real camping, because I wasn’t sleeping in a tent or going to the bathroom in a hole.

Although life is much busier these days, my husband will still find time to camp and hunt. I happily help him pack and send him off with food for the week like a doting wife. I mean, the mere thought of no porcelain thrones is enough to keep me away.

However, what Michael enjoys about hunting isn’t necessarily whether he shoots a buck or not (although that’s always preferred); it’s the serenity of hunting.

The stillness, the quiet, and being way out in the wilderness shifts his perspective.

Any hunter, from novice to expert, knows that the wilderness is the place to be.

The authors of Scripture knew it too.

“The wilderness was a place where God’s people were drawn into deeper relationship with God Himself. It wasn’t just a physical location. It was a place of spiritual transformation.“

They told stories of wilderness encounters from the Israelites’ forty years of wandering to Jesus’ temptation, and there is one thing each of those encounters in the Bible has in common: The wilderness was a place where God’s people were drawn into deeper relationship with God Himself. It wasn’t just a physical location. It was a place of spiritual transformation. It was a divine locale that God used to draw His people into a heightened experience and revival when they needed it most.

Imagine wandering in the wilderness for forty years like the Israelites. Imagine not just wandering, but living, eating, sleeping, and raising children in the wilderness. Imagine how many questions, doubts, and fears they had. Imagine how pessimistic they must have grown about the promises of God. We see their grumblings, complaints, and dwindling optimism. But, greater still, we see God’s provision.

The Israelites weren’t just physically parched from going without water. They were spiritually parched.

Dwelling on their circumstances, giving in to discouragement, growing bitter toward God, and distracting themselves with temporary idols. But what did God do? He made the bitter water, their only source of water in the wilderness, sweetly satisfying. Soul satisfying.

Now, look to Jesus’ wilderness encounter. What a stark contrast between how Jesus navigated His wilderness and how the Israelites navigated theirs. Both were spiritually challenging, dry, and testing locations. Whereas the Israelites allowed their spiritually weary souls to succumb to distrust and forgetfulness, Jesus pressed in. He allowed barren wasteland to lead him into a deeper relationship with His Father.

“The enemy would love to deprive us of feeling God’s presence and love in the wilderness, but the Lord wants to— and will— strengthen us in the wilderness by replacing the discouragement we feel with His hope, His son, Jesus.“

The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy, Satan. This wasn’t a punishment or a bait-and-switch situation. This was a divine display. Matthew 4:2–3 says, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’”

The enemy hit Jesus where it hurt the most. After forty days without food, He was starving.

With a gnarly right hook, the enemy swung. He taunted Jesus to create food out of thin air. He told Him to throw Himself off the highest point of the temple to prove his deity. And finally, the enemy tried to get Jesus to bow down and worship him. But Jesus didn’t take Satan’s blows lying down, and He certainly didn’t waver. With every test, He answered with a promise from God’s Word. 

The enemy would love to deprive us of feeling God’s presence and love in the wilderness, but the Lord wants to— and will— strengthen us in the wilderness by replacing the discouragement we feel with His hope, His son, Jesus.

You might be thinking, Tara, I feel so spiritually stuck and worn out. Fighting for truth and coming to Jesus require energy that I don’t have to give. Adding yet another thing to do when you’re already depleted is exhausting. Your schedule is already overbooked, and your mind is too overstimulated to think about doing yet another thing.

I hear you.

Now hear me?

You don’t have to go very far.

With every one step we take toward Jesus, He takes a million leaps toward us.

With every feeble attempt we make to drag ourselves forward, He shows His strength in pursuing us first.

Jesus is not disgusted by our lack of energy or follow- through. He is merciful and gracious. He rejoices with the prodigal too.

All it takes is one step, or one stumble if you’re feeling exhausted to fall into the depths of His revival. And as we experience more of that refreshment, it makes coming back all the sweeter. 

Let this be our war cry against spiritual apathy and a march toward spiritual grit. When hard times come and when we feel consumed by the overwhelm, responsibilities, and fullness of life, the answer isn’t to let the wilderness win. The answer is to lean into how God desires for those wilderness seasons to shape us – by elevating our awareness of Him and deepening our dependence on Him.

There will be times that thorns grow up in our lives, the sun beats down on our backs, and the enemy capitalizes on hard circumstances. But there is a glimmer of gospel hope that pervades it all: God loves us with the most fierce, committed, and consistent love.

If you find yourself stuck or overwhelmed, chocked by hardships and burned by life, look up.

Look up to His love.

Shake loose the dirt and dust that have been collecting. Stir up your soul with a reminder of what it’s longing for: love.

A love that refreshes, revives, and rescues.

Tara Sun is the uplifting host of the popular women’s podcast, Truth Talks with Tara, and the author of several books. She is a dynamic speaker and creative, using each of these platforms to equip women with the tools to know, love, and live God’s Word in their daily lives. Tara’s favorite titles are wife to her husband, Michael, and mom to their two young boys.

In her latest book, Overbooked and Overwhelmed, she speaks to every woman who longs for Jesus to have first place in their life – and not just the meager leftovers. She offers compassion, practicality, and most of all, biblical depth to live fully present with God, even in the midst of an over-busy, over-notified, and overwhelming life.

Tara knows what it’s like to feel disconnected from God due to the demands of life. But she’s here to help you put distractions in their place, center your life around Jesus, and prioritize His presence – no matter how crazy-busy your life is.

{Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional.}