Just keep going. Dear friend, I want to encourage you to just keep going forward with God, just keep waiting in active faith and expectation, no matter what your current circumstance. Yes, life is hard at any time but especially in these turbulent days when evil is being called good and good is being called evil (Isaiah 5:20-21), these times when Satan is seeking to steal, kill, and destroy us in many ways, including just plain “wearying us out.” (Daniel 7:25). He is vicious in the world, and he is vicious in our individual lives. Although you may face giant-size problems, like David, you can run to the battle, confident in your God, and see the giants in your life fall.
A word of caution about this blog post. Today, a fellow believer requested prayer because—having been ill all week—she was feeling weak, tired, fragile, anxious and teary. I have so often felt the same way. As I prayed, I felt led to write down some Scriptures for her and also to write what I believed God might want to say to her. What I wrote follows. I pray it comforts and strengthens you as you continue to “Fight the good fight of faith” (2 Timothy 4:7-8)
Please hear me: I wrote this for someone whom I know is pursuing God with all her heart and obeying everything God shows her to do. If that is you, then I believe God might say the words below to you.
However, if that does not describe your relationship with Almighty God, I know He would still be loving and tender and compassionate with you, because that is part of His unchanging nature (as He clearly tells us in Psalm 103 and countless other Bible passages.) But if you are not seeking Him with your whole heart and obeying Him in everything you know to do, I know He would also have words of loving correction (Hebrews 12) because He loves you. “A father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” (Proverbs 3:11-12).
So, I urge you to carefully and prayerfully examine yourself, as Paul admonishes us to do in 2 Corinthians 13:5 before you read the words below and take them as applying to you.
Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you–unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected? (2 Corinthians 13:5, AMPC)
He will guide your steps. If you are sincere and approach Him with reverence and awe and a heart sincerely seeking Him–as is our only reasonable way to approach God–He will guide your steps (Proverbs 3, especially verses 1-8.) If you need correction, He will supply it. Regardless! Call on Him and He WILL answer, as Psalm 145 tells us.
The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry for help and save them.
20 The Lord watches over all who love Him, But He will destroy all the wicked. (Psalm 145:18, NASB)
What I believe God might say when the enemy has sought to “weary us out”. So dear friend and fellow pilgrim, the following is what I believe God might be saying to those who pursue Him whole-heartedly and have become weary.
“Come, come to Me, My little child. Feel My strong arms of love around you. Let Me comfort your heart and calm your worried soul.
Do not think MY child, that because you are suffering that I am displeased with you or that I have abandoned you in any way. I will never, no never, no never forsake-not for a moment—those who fear and revere and obey Me as you do.
Yes, My precious little one, My sweet child, you are in a mighty trial but know—keep in your conscious mind—that I AM in it with you and when it is done, you will shine forth as gold, stronger, and better equipped for the battle and able to stay closer to Me than ever.
Tell Me, little one, is this—this greater closeness, this greater equipping—is this not that for which you have beseeched Me? I give good gifts to those who seek Me out of a pure heart and true devotion.
This present circumstance that has brought you so low in heart is for your good. Though you cannot see this fact with the eye of flesh, believe that I AM with you and that I AM even now delivering you, for I deliver the righteous from all their troubles, though their troubles in his world be many.
I AM with you. Behold, My darling child, listen to Me and be strengthened in your inner man—that secret place where we dwell together—behold
- as I was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
- as I was with Joseph in all his trials and with Moses at the Red Sea and all through the wilderness,
- as I was with David, Daniel, the three Hebrew boys, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all my faithful prophet,
- as I was with My only begotten Son and the Twelve,
- as I was with Peter, James, John and Paul as they established My church – even so, My child, I AM and I WILL BE with you.
- I AM and I WILL BE your Healer, Provider, Protector, Comforter, Savior, Deliverer, and your best friend.
These present trials. These present trials have not touched the spirit within you. Though you cannot see it, simply in standing fast and waiting with hope, you are moving forward. I AM with you and I delight in your trust. I rejoice over you with singing.
This will not harm you. It will turn out for your good. Wait, I say, wait on ME! Expect, look and long for Me for I AM delivering you.
I AM delivering you. I AM helping you, training you, in loving discipline, “as a father disciplines the son he loves.” I am training you SO THAT you can better perceive your weaknesses and, because of that, learn to lean more on Me and not your own strength, or that of any other.
You have done well My child, and I am training you so that you can learn—even better–the habit of exercising, of using, your faith. I AM pruning away branches that bear no fruit and the branches that do bear fruit, I am pruning in order that you may be even more fruitful. (John 15:1-17) I call you friend, My child, because you do what I command. I “chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. “
Your own heart determines what you feel. Yet, even though you are safe in My arms and carried close to My very heart, it is your own heart that determines what you feel. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Though it cost everything you have, learn—in the midst of trial–to fix your mind on me and my truth and wait with confident expectation, because:
- I AM your deliverer, I AM your Healer, I AM delivering you NOW, I AM healing you NOW.
- I have seen your faith and I AM rewarding your faith because you have believed that I exist and that I reward those who diligently seek Me. (Hebrews 11:6)
- As the man who believed yet asked for help to believe, so you have prayed and I AM answering.
The way IS narrow. Your way, My beloved child, is indeed narrow but in this narrow path–precisely because the narrowness forces you to look to ME—I am giving you greater ability to make progress upon the dangerous heights of testing and trouble (Psalm 18:33). I AM, even now, giving you hinds feet, in order that, having ascended your mountain, your feet may be beautiful as you and I descend the other side, bringing good tidings to others. (Isaiah 52:7)
I am training you how to renew Your strength in me as the eagle’s strength is renewed, in order that you may be able to mount up with wings like the eagle and soar on high, and with your eyes as an eagle, detect your food from afar (Job 39:27-30). You will soar on high, and from those heights, be enabled to search for and find food for your soul—fresh, living food, food that has the blood of life, the breath of life in it.
As eaglets in the nest feed for a time upon the flesh its parents bring, and are nourished by it–though that flesh be unclean, lacking as it does the living blood of life– so you have been nourished. But even as the eagle stirs up its nest and leads its young to soar, so I am stirring you up. Why? Because I love you, and I have called you to feed on that Living Water that bubbles up from within and that precious Bread of Life I have given for you. (John 6)
Come to Me! So come, come, My precious child! Come to Me. I AM your delight! I AM your reward! I AM all you need!
“My beloved speaks and says to me. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing [of birds] has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth and ripens her green figs, and the vines are in blossom and give forth their fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” (Song of Solomon 2:10-13, AMPC)
Verses for meditation. Below are just a couple of verses for when you feel weak, fatigued, fragile, and teary. Emphasis has been added using all capitals or underlines.
Strength for weakness
Isaiah 41:10 10 Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I WILL strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I WILL help you; yes, I WILL hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.
Isaiah 40:31 1 But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.
Refreshing for fatigue
Matthew 11:28-29 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I WILL cause you to rest. [I WILL ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]
9 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you WILL find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
Compassion as a father for our fragility
All of Psalm 103, especially 8-14
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and loving-kindness.
9 He will not always chide or be contending, neither will He keep His anger forever or hold a grudge.
10 He has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great are His mercy and loving-kindness toward those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father loves and pities his children, so the Lord loves and pities those who fear Him [with reverence, worship, and awe].
14 For He knows our frame, He [EARNSTLY] remembers and IMPRINTS [ON HIS HEART] that we are dust.
He sees and feels each tear
All of Psalm 56, especially verse 8 – You number and record my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle—are they not in Your book?
Hope and expectation
He will give hope and expectation as we recall His mercies in the past and choose to hope in and wait for Him, even though we feel like verse 17. Lamentations 3:17-26
My prayer for you is that –
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 NASB 1995)”