Many believe that when something is God’s will, there will be nothing but smooth sailing … everything will just line up and fall into place.
Tell that to Joseph, or Daniel, or Job.
Ask Paul or John the Baptist if that theology panned out for them.
Struggle doesn’t mean you are going against God. In fact, sometimes, getting to peace requires war.
Sometimes walking in God’s will requires more fight than you could have imagined you had in you.
When the children of Israel approached the Promised Land, God sent hornets ahead of them to drive out their enemies. But He did something unexpected. He said, “I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little, I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.”[1]
He is a God of process. Things He orchestrates often take time to come about, not because He is not able, but because we are not yet ready. Struggle brings strength. Maturation allows us to increase—wisdom, knowledge, skill, experience, … faith, hope, patience, love—and after we have increased, then we get to occupy the promise.
It doesn’t always happen this way, but often it does. Most things God asks of us take some effort. Some costly investment. Some death to self, some death to the flesh, some sacrifice. Sometimes there is even the death of a vision before the solution manifests. (Consider how Abraham felt when his beloved son, Isaac, was tied to that rock!)
Obedience can be costly.
Don’t let the contradiction of circumstances you are living through convince you that what you are standing on and believing for is crazy … or not from God. Instead, let your mind align with His Word and keep pushing through that struggle.
Step into the finished work of Christ. Pray from the place of “It is finished.” As I like to say, I live in the land of “already done!”
If you won’t quit, you’ll win! There is something holy about enduring for the promise.
#liveonpurpose #intentionality
[1] Exodus 23:29-30, NKJV.