Running our race with perseverance. This is something I strive to do yet there are moments in time when the rug gets stripped out from under my feet and life’s tornados knock me down for the count. Not because I want to be laid out in the ground all bruised up from the whiplash I endured from the spiraling winds of the storm, but because the truth in all this is that even the strongest of us have weak moments, need to grieve, and can get taken out. Even the strongest of us face the battle doubt, rejection, and fear of the unknowns. Even the strongest of us don’t initially know how to stand back up on our own when we get knocked down because we can get paralyzed by the fear of falling again. Even the strongest of us hide behind the masks of our reality and even the strongest of us forget that we need to hold onto, in fact CLING to the cross.
The truth is, it is in our weakness that God is our strength. It is in our weakness that God sustains us and carries us through. It is in our weakness that we barrel crawl through the thick mud of life just to grab ahold of the hem of His garment and it is in our weakness that God upholds us with His righteous right hand.
Let’s keep it real. All of these things are what I have done or needed in my life, especially recently. There are seasons I have taken a step back as my body has felt crushed. There are seasons I have drank lots of coffee, gotten back into bed, shed many of tears and I have fiercely leaned into HIM as He called me back onto the mountaintop, into a place of meeting Him face to face so He can shower me with rest.
Y’all, it is ok NOT to be ok. It is ok to have moments in time where you isolate yourself from the distractions, the chaos, the noises of the world because you are gasping for air as your lungs are slowly collapsing from the heaviness life has thrown your way. It is ok to admit that in your weakness, in your weariness that attacks of the enemy are coming at you in propelled acceleration and you need to drop to your knees, because standing up puts you in arms way of the explosive grenades the enemy is relentlessly targeting you with. We drop to our knees in desperation, praying God meets us on our ground so He can speak life giving words back into our fragile souls and we drop to our knees dehydrated, needing His living water to be infused back into our bloodstream.
God says in His word to “Be still and know I am God.” Meaning He is going before us, leveling mountains, cutting down bars of iron, going before us while He fighting our battles with us and for us. The battles you are facing, the hardships you encapsulating you, the pain that is running rampant throughout your life, know you do not need to do walk through this on your own. God calls us to rest in being still. He calls us to lean on our fellow brethren so we can carry one another’s burdens and weep with those who weep. He calls us to armor up in the armor of God and He tells us that He is our safe place of refuge. Take a moment and breathe those promises in. God wants us to rest, He wants us to find comfort in being still. Resting in Jesus, this is something God has been convicting me of lately as I tend to run or should I say keep myself “busy” enough so I am distracted from the internal chaos that can bring upheaval to my soul. I know for me, rest is an uncomfortable grace I know I need to sit in more often yet it is a place that I stay furthest away from. So my question for you is this, of God has opened the eyes of my heart to the need of stillness in my life so He can fight my battles for me, is He doing the same with some of you?
If this is hitting a tender spot in your heartbeat, I encourage you lean into God a little closer today. Know you do not need to be strong at all times. Know it is ok to let safe people into your world so they can cover you, stand in the gap and lift you up in prayer. Know you are not “less” for having a bad day or for feeling weak and vulnerable. God calls us to the mountaintop sometimes to wrestle some things out with Him so we can persevere with bold strength and confidence through the race He has set before us. If you keep running from things, people, hardships, pain or your past, you will eventually collapse into a dark arena.
Rest in knowing who God is and whom He has called you to be. Rest in knowing God has you in the palm of His hands walking this journey out with you. Rest in knowing it is OK to have days you take a step back, tune out the noises of the world and listen to His gentle whispers He is speaking into your life, into your soul. Know it is ok to go to the emergency room to get a liquid IV of the Holy Spirit infused into you and know it is ok to get an electrical shock to get your heartbeat back into a homeostasis rhythm.
It is ok to have bleak days, days deep within the dark valley, days when we desperately need Jesus to meet us, resurrect us and transform us. These are the moments in time we embrace the hand of God in profound ways and these are the moments in time that we have episodic encounters with Jesus that mark us in ways that heal us to the core of our being. Today, recognize where you are in your journey and look for God in the little and in the big. He is trying to grab your attention. The question is will you seek Him?
Love you all and PRAYING you through 🙏❤️
2 Corinthians 12:9-11, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
