Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. (Ps. 27:13-14)
For those of you who don’t know, I am 29 years old. I am about to be 30 next month…mixed feelings about that one, but I digress. I began my journey with Jesus when I was 10. Since that time, I have been on many adventures. I have had ups and downs, victories and trials, made mistakes and learned lessons. I am still very young in all of this and seek to learn and grow up into the ways of Christ every day.
Another fun fact about me…I can be super stubborn. It’s really a strength and a weakness. When I believe in something or stand for something, I can be unrelenting. One thing that burns strongly in my heart is a desire to never give up on people, to fight for people, to fight alongside people, to persevere in the midst of mess. Because I am stubborn, God has had to teach me and continues to teach me that there is a time and a season for everything. There is a time to hold on and a time to let go, a time to persist and a time to fall back and pray. There is a place for speaking your mind and a place for praying in silence. There is a place for allowing people to make their own mistakes. Most importantly, I think, I am learning to allow God to be God and trusting Him to do what I cannot in people’s lives. Another important lesson? Persistence requires patience. There are promises and things we will pray for that may take years to come to fruition. Sometimes those prayers will take place in secret between us and the Lord for a long season before God asks us to do anything. Discernment and timing and wisdom and grace are all important factors in the equation. I’m learning.
As I wrap up my reading of The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Kris Vallotton, I came across a chapter that so deeply resonated with me, regarding how we as God’s children are supposed to contend for a justice of restoration. Suddenly, my stubbornness made sense. Kris writes, “Those who live with His throne in their hearts are moved to bring righteousness and justice into every situation.” Yes!!!!! As God’s sons and daughters, we should be moved to bring restoration into every place where the enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy. In my family background, there has been much addiction, broken relationships, illness, you name it. I have prayed for many years to see complete and total health and restoration in my family. I am still contending for this and sometimes I do have to admit that I wonder why it is taking so long. I do have to say that if I had not contended for as long as I have and fought in prayer as long as I have, if I had not seen firsthand the destruction the enemy can wreak in a family, I probably would not be motivated to pray for breakthrough the way that I have. I probably wouldn’t have the passion for restoration that I have. I have to believe that every prayer that I have prayed is reaping and will reap a harvest in my life.
I mentioned in a previous post that a theme in my life lately has been childlike faith. It is a point that God keeps hitting on with me. One thing that happens in many adults is that we tend to lose our capacity to dream over time. We lose a lot of our excitement. In this season, to be vulnerable, this has been one of the biggest things that I have wrestled with. After long seasons of disappointment, we can slip into a place of feeling resigned to just deal with life as it comes. I guess this is the way that life is and I better just learn to make the best of it. NO.
NO….NO.
There is a kind of adjustment that should come in the transition that follows a season of hardship. You may surrender the expectation that things will happen the way you want, in the timing you wanted and according to the specific guidelines you prayed for. At some point, all of that may need to go out the window. But the general principles that we stand on, the promises we find in God’s Word regarding ourselves and our loved ones, we don’t give those up. We don’t stop standing in faith, even after 10 or 20 years has passed. Our approach to a situation may change, but our heart posture of faith, belief and expectation never should. Our job is not to do the thing and to make it happen. Our job is to stand in faith. As Kris writes, “Faith sees the finished work of the cross in eternity and contends to see it released in history.”
We can be stubborn when it comes to clinging to every word that God has spoken and said. Even if we don’t see it, we are allowed to fiercely adhere to every truth God speaks. These are the things we never let go of.
Jesus demonstrated what can happen when one person totally agrees with the will of the Father. –Kris Vallotton
