Hey y'all!
Can we just stop and pause a moment and THANK GOD that it is summer? -- Cool. I'm officially done with my first year of grad school, and though it was challenging, it excites me because I only have one year left!! (PRAISE.)
Looking back over this year, and especially over this past semester, all I can think about is God's grace. This semester challenged me in ways I definitely was not prepared for, and I don't mean academically. Sure, the academics were challenging, but what was even more challenging was trying to hold on to the faith and hope of God's promises that I have been clinging to for the past few years. As more days, months, and years went by, the harder it became for me to keep holding on and I honestly felt I reached my limit.
I was struggling to keep walking by faith when I was seeing absolutely no fruit of my efforts. I know how important faith is, and I know what it says in the Bible about walking by faith and not by sight. Trust me, I KNOW, and I've been doing that for years. But this go round, I couldn't. It's not that I didn't want to, I simply did not have the strength in me to keep believing and standing firm on the promises of God. To put it simply: I became weary.
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
-Isaiah 40:28 / ESV
But, there's good news. In my weakest state, when I didn't have any strength of my own, the Lord met me with His perfect strength. He met me with His strength that never runs out. His strength that carried me when I couldn't carry myself. His strength that handled every single thing that I threw at Him. I had nothing left to give, but the Lord let me know that was okay. He didn't expect me to be strong and have it all together. He didn't even expect me to automatically be made strong again after finding my way back to His unchanging Word. He met me with strength, but also with understanding, patience, and love. He allowed me to wallow in my weakness, while He carried me. He allowed me to throw fits and be a complete brat, while He still loved me fully and completely. He let me express my disappointment and frustrations with Him, while at the same time, He slowly began restoring hope within my heart.
This process of being revived and being made strong again is definitely not over. In fact, it is just beginning. But I want y'all to keep a few things in mind as you go through seasons of weariness and find yourself struggling to hold on to hope:
1. God does not simply provide us with a light at the end of the tunnel and then expect us to make it there on our own.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." -Psalm 23:4 / ESV
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you."
-Isaiah 43:2 / ESV
"Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” -Hebrews 13:5 / ESV
Something I had to learn is that God is in the valley WITH us. He doesn't just give us the hope, and then disappear and wait for us on the other side. He walks right next to us through every tunnel, every struggle, every battle, every heartbreak, every disappointment, and every valley that we go through in this life. He doesn't just give us the resources in order to make it through, He literally walks through these things with us. Every. Single. Time. Not only does He not leave us, He is right there beside us the whole time. Yes, we will make it through to the other side, but even in the process, even before we reach that point, we can rest assured that we are not alone.
2. Your weakness does not scare God or run Him away.
Regardless of who you are and what you've done: God loves you. He cherishes you. He desires you. He created you specifically to be in relationship with Him. He does not remember your sins. He does not hold your failures above your head. He does not keep up with the number of times you fall short. He is not fed up with you. He does not get tired of you. He loves you. In your weakest state and after your biggest failure, He loves you. Fully and completely. He is not disappointed in you. His love for you is not rooted in what you do, but in who you are as His child. If He wanted perfect children, He would not have created us. He knows our imperfections. He knows our sins. He knows the many ways in which we fall short. But still, He chooses us over and over again. You are a perfectly loved child of God. Come to Him, broken and weary. Come to Him a complete mess. Come to Him in all of your imperfections. And be met with a love like no other.
"But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
-Romans 5:8 / AMP
"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18 / ESV
3. Quick fix solutions are never the answer.
Lately, I've been going through each book in the book of Psalms and really outlining what these verses have to say about God, and man is it powerful. A recurring theme that I have noticed is how often these authors are crying out to the Lord and really making known the hurt that is in the depths of their hearts. This is where we find healing. This is where we find hope. This is where we find strength: when we can pour out our hearts and cry out to the Lord about how badly we are hurting and how weak we are. The strength He gives cannot find us if we are simply proclaiming that we are strong and proclaiming that we are on the way to our breakthrough. Yes, these things may be true, but we cannot neglect the process that comes with healing and finding hope again.
God is not about us pretending to have all the faith in the world when we don't. He doesn't want us simply proclaiming and making statements out of our mouths when our hearts are saying otherwise. He doesn't want us to "think happy thoughts" and just "look on the bright side". You will never find healing that way.
If you're hurting, tell Him. Be honest with Him. Be real with Him. Let Him know how you really feel. You don't have to put on a façade with the Lord. Like I said in point #2, our weakness is not going to scare Him away. He won't punish us for having a "lack of faith" by telling Him what's really going on. It may be easier for us to just speak clichés and then hope for the best and assume that by not acknowledging our weakness that it will somehow disappear. But that is never the answer. God longs to help us, so why pretend that we don't need it? Do the hard work of pouring out your heart, and yes I mean all of it, to the Lord. Drop the clichés, and drop the quick fixes, and follow suit of what is found in God's Word.
"In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears." -Psalm 18:6 / ESV
"To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary." -Psalm 28:1-2 / ESV
"O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me...But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer." -Psalm 38:9-10;15 / ESV
When we come to the Lord, in all of our weakness, in all of our brokenness, in all of our shortcomings. When we come to the Lord truly as we are, and take off the masks and stop putting on façades. Then we will be met with the strength of the Lord.
"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of
the weak."
-Isaiah 40:29 / NIV
Go, in the strength of the Lord.
Be blessed,
Elisha ❤︎