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September 7 - September 14, 2023
We have an astonishing capacity to rally in the face of calamity and duress. We rally and rally, and then one day we discover there’s nothing left. Our soul simply says, I’m done; I don’t want to do this anymore, as we collapse into discouragement, depression, or just blankness of soul.
Extraordinary times can be thrilling, but they also tend to be very demanding. Our hearts will need guidance and preparation. It would be a good idea to take the strength of your soul seriously at this time.
Our enemy, the prince of darkness, has engineered this situation to do serious harm to the human heart. I believe we are set up for a sweeping loss of faith.
There is hope, great hope. Jesus Christ knew that humanity would face hard times, especially as history accelerates toward the end of the age. He gave us counsel on how to live through such trials, and now would be a good time to pay attention to what he said. The Creator and Redeemer of our humanity has given us a path toward recovery and resilience. We would be fools to ignore it or push it off to “some other time.” Whatever you believe about the coming years, I think we can all agree that greater resilience of heart and soul would be a very good thing to take hold of.
The survivor’s first need is water. You can live forty days without food, but only three without water. Water is life; finding water is one of your first objectives.
Restore the sparkle to my eyes. PSALM 13:3 NLT
The epicenter of our being is the deep longing to aspire for things that bring us life, to plan for those things, to take hold of them, to enjoy them, and start the cycle over as we aspire toward new things! This is the essential craving for life given to us by God. Let’s call this capacity the Primal Drive for Life.
This hunger allows human beings to survive the most terrible ordeals; it also enables us to savor all the goodness of this world, to
love, and to create works of immense beauty.
We tap into our deep reserves to endure years of suffering and deprivation. Then one day our heart simply says, I don’t care anymore; I’m done. We abandon the fight and go off to find relief. I fear this is what’s happening now on a global scale.
Trauma sensitizes you to more trauma and brings to the surface past trauma. You don’t get used to it; each new crisis simply piles on the stress.6
The great alarm the Scriptures are sounding is that our longing for life to be good again will be the battleground for our heart. How you shepherd this precious longing, and if you shepherd it at all, will determine your fate in this life and in the life to come.
The first stage of the coming storm is this: we’ve all run off to find life and joy following years of stress, trauma, and deprivation. But it isn’t working; it won’t ever work. We return to our normal Monday through Friday disappointed, and disappointment will become disillusionment. And disillusionment makes us extremely vulnerable to our enemy. We must lovingly shepherd our famished thirst back to the source of life.
What is available is the River of Life, God himself, in ways we have not yet tapped into.
“Where the river flows everything will live” (Ezekiel 47:9). Everything will live. This is what we want—to live, to find life in its fullness again.
the River of Life is not just for later. Jesus stated clearly that the river is meant to flow out of our inner being right here, in this life: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:37–38).
The mighty life of God flowing in you and through you, saturating you like a river.
Our first step toward resilience is to return our Primal Drive for Life and our longing for things to be good again to God; we come back to Jesus from all other places we’ve been chasing life. We allow him to be our rescuer here, in the longing for life to be good again. We ask God to fill us with the river of his life.
Though we call them “supernatural” graces, that doesn’t mean they come like an earthquake or lightning strike. God is tender with our weary souls; he doesn’t overwhelm us with his presence. As we practice these graces, their strength will grow. But your initial experience of them will be gentle—this will help you trust what you are experiencing.
We are living in a story, friends. A story written and being unfolded by the hand of God. Despite what the world is shouting at you, the story of God is still the story of the world. This is the hardest thing to hang on to, and the most important thing to hang on to: the story of God is still the story of the world.
Your current emotional state—does it reflect your confidence that Jesus is absolute Lord of everything on earth, galaxies to governments? That his church is center stage, not the world? That Christ is going to get the final word?
The story of God, the story of Jesus Christ has been, is now, and always will be the story of the world. This is so important for the friends of God to keep in front of us; it’s one of those things to put on a sticky note on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror: the story of God has been, is now, and always will be the story of the world.
everything Jesus said about his sudden return to this planet assumes the element of surprise. Life is going to look and feel like business as usual until the moment the archangel blows the trumpet and God himself steps in to sweep away evil and start the joy!
the battle right now is for the narrative; who gets to frame the story for you? Either it will be God, or someone else. If you are “alarmed,” something has drawn your attention away from the story of God. Let your fears, anxieties, anger, or rage alert you that you’ve been taken hostage; stop and get your bearings.
Strong enough to escape—that’s who and what we want to be. Strong enough to be the survivors, the triumphant ones. To make it through the storm.
Jesus wants us to understand that it is the powers of hell that are trying to overpower us, to crush the human heart—especially the hearts of his followers. The strength God urges us to ask for is a combative strength, a strength to win the fight, to overcome.
We need strength of heart, strength of mind, strength of spirit. A strength that prevails. Because there are forces urging us to quit.
God can handle your anger, disappointment, even bitterness. But walking away from Jesus is forsaking your only hope out of the heartache.
But resilience is also something that is bestowed, something imparted by God into our frail humanity.
The strength that prevails—this mighty, combative warrior-strength—first comes to us simply as the strength not to quit.
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit—God of all creation, God of the thunderstorm and the waterfall, I need your strength. I need the strength that prevails. I don’t want to fall away; I don’t want to lose heart. I choose you above all things. I give you my allegiance and my undivided love. I choose single-heartedness toward you, Lord Jesus—body, soul, and spirit; heart, mind, and will. I pray for a supernatural resilience, God. Fill me with your overcoming strength, a victorious strength. Father, Lord of heaven and earth, strengthen me. I pray for strength of mind, strength of heart, strength of will.
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Wander away from your Shepherd and you will encounter harm. The forces of darkness come “to steal and kill and destroy” as he bluntly put it (John 10:10).
The beautiful resilience Jesus offers us comes from his resources; endurance is imparted to us.
We cannot hope to find resilience while we ignore the provision God has for us in the fullness of his beautiful kingdom.
We need the Eden Glory of God—the regenerative, life-giving, life-sustaining glory of God—in great measure right now. We need a greater measure of the manifest presence of Jesus in us. And we are meant to be filled with it. The glory of God is meant to fill our hearts and souls. We can ask for this supernatural grace, so by all means let’s do!
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I receive your Glory into my being. I receive the Glory that fills the oceans, the Glory that sustains the sun. I receive the Glory that raised Christ from the dead! I pray that your Eden Glory would fill my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I am your temple, Lord; come and fill your temple with your Glory! I also pray that your Eden Glory would shield me against all forms of Desolation coming over my life. I renounce every agreement I might have made with Desolation, every agreement large and small. I choose you, God. I renounce the Falling Away, and I choose you.
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God is the fountain of life. The only fountain of life. His glorious life is meant to flow through us every day—healing us, filling us with creativity, courage, joy, playfulness, and resilience. It comes through attachment, bonded love, the soul’s union with God.
Women who everyone had used and abused came to Jesus, threw themselves at his feet, and he was only loving toward them.
The goal of God’s work in us is Jesus taking up residence in every part of us. Nothing left out. No little pockets of resistance.
“And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. . . . Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:10, 12 NLT).
we are like stained glass—beautiful even in our brokenness, but made up of many fragments. Everyone is fragmented.
salvation is a process, and it will help you be kind and merciful when those unconverted parts of you suddenly show up. Simply because the rage, bitterness, unbelief, or whatever pops out of the closet doesn’t mean your salvation isn’t real. It means parts of you are yet to be united to Christ.
the goodness of Jesus will work its way through your entire being. Jesus is the yeast, by the way—it is his gorgeous life living in you that begins to permeate your being and truly save you. That is what salvation is: the permutation of your being by the presence of Christ in you, healing you, renewing you, imbuing you with his own life.
It follows, then, that what we are cooperating with, what we seek with all our hearts in this hard hour, is the process where God exposes some part of us not yet united to Christ, so that it can be united to Christ. This is the new way of looking at the stuff that emerges when you are hard-pressed.
We’ve got to remember, folks, that no matter how promising an idea sounds, if God’s not in it, you don’t want to be in it either. This is true of a relationship, career change, buying or selling a house, even something as simple as a vacation. We only want what Jesus is in; we only want what our Father is giving. The key test for this moment is not only “I give you my allegiance, Jesus” but also “I only want what you are doing.” And what is Jesus doing right now?
Only the return of Jesus will bring about the healing of this broken planet.
Where are we chasing life? We must make sure that this tender part of our heart belongs to Jesus.
This is not my lasting reality; this is simply my present reality.
Don’t allow your past experience to restrict your ability to open yourself to this. Life is disappointing. There are many things we don’t understand, why God didn’t come through. I know this myself. But this is exactly why we must allow the Scriptures to open new horizons for us, or we will forever remain within the confines of our experience. So think of it again: the God of shooting stars and swirling galaxies, the Lord who sustains “all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3) lives in you. What if you could draw upon that glorious energy and power?
It would change things for sure.
