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What if the victory is only in part how things turn out? What if a bigger part of being victorious is how well we live today?
The disappointment that is exhausting and frustrating you? It holds the potential for so much good. But we’ll only see it as good if we trust the heart of the Giver.
But disappointment isn’t proof that God is withholding good things from us. Sometimes it’s His way of leading us Home.
And I’d do exactly what Adam and Eve did. I’d have a love affair with my own desires. I’d sell my soul for a lie laced with poison.
When you suffer, slow becomes necessary. Slow becomes good. One of the best parts of this season of suffering for me was a life that doesn’t require shoes. When you wear no shoes the sun has access to your feet.
And on a spiritual level it seemed to have some sort of parallel meaning. When you live slow for a season, the Son has access to the parts of you normally covered up by everyday put-ons.
Make no mistake, those who are the most eager to harshly criticize others are often the ones most desperate to keep hidden their own secret sins or unresolved pain.
But what I figured out I had to deal with first was my fear of other people’s thoughts, opinions, whispers, and comments.
I was surprised where God wanted me to start. Not with them. But with me. Not with their words. But with my fear.
What gives power to all that I fear others are thinking and accusing and saying isn’t the people themselves. It isn’t even the enemy. I’m the one who decides if their statements have power over me or not. It’s me.
I’m so quick to remember others’ hurtful words but slow to remember God’s healing words.
Anytime you feel disappointed in yourself, the enemy will cue this script. This paralyzing lie is one of his favorite tactics to keep you disillusioned by disappointments.
This is when we settle for the ease of Facebook instead of the more challenging work of digging into God’s book of transformation.
She wears well the scars of suffering and can’t wait to tell you her survival story so you, too, can survive. She has great compassion toward every created thing, whether it be covered in paint or flesh or dust.
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”
The longer he can keep someone deceived, the more their flesh will scream for pleasure, and soon they will become slaves to the most depraved versions of their desires.
Jeremiah 17:9 clearly says our hearts can’t be trusted: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Every single thing our emotions tell us must be held up to the Truth of God’s Word. Otherwise, we will be susceptible to the way our enemy twists our thoughts and feelings and uses them to deceive us.
We are all just a few poor choices away from sinful situations we never thought we’d be in.
What if your “I don’t know” is helping you, not hurting you? Even now, what positives can you see coming from your season of disappointment?
But it’s better to wrestle with Truth than wallow in turmoil.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2–4)
Because sometimes when you can’t find your footing with your own faith, you just have to go stand on someone else’s for a while.
She will see I didn’t do these things to her. I did them for her.
