“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”
2 Corinthians 4:8
I am confident that the Lord sees our hearts because His word in Proverbs 13:12 proclaim that, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
So what happens when you feel like your hope is deferred?
How do you faithfully respond when the eagerness and faithfulness to cling to a word that God has given you is seen as delayed from where you stand?
What do you do when your own minds starts to wage war against you and call you crazy for believing in the promise in the first place?
When you have done all you can, when you have done your best in being patient, when you have mastered worship as a response to the pain of waiting, and still your circumstances portray everything unlikely to the promise of God, then what?
Does the heart then not become sick? Does disappointment not then become despair? Does your fleeting hope then not make you so grievous that you dare to question the intent of God when He gave you the desire in the first place???
Believe me when I say I stand with you in that place of confusion, uncertainty, and tiredness.
But we cannot stay there!
We must not stay there!
By the power of the living Christ, WE WILL NOT REMAIN IN DESPAIR in Jesus name!!!
Because that is not what God promised. That is not what God called us to. That is certainly not what God has brought us this far to do.
I confess that these last few days felt like hell. I felt such a grieving distance from God that it pained me to pray and utter faithful words like I did when the promise was first revealed to me. But like a refreshing rain, the Holy Spirit poured into me in my hour of hopelessness.
When I was about to give up, when I was about to tap out, when I was about to release my hope completely and claim defeat over this word, God turned ME around. God shifted something in me and called me to decide.
Friend, the only thing between your disappointment and your despair is your decision to change your mind about how you see the disappointment in the first place.
No, it may not look anything like the promise. No it may not feel like your faith is strong enough to withstand the process to the promise. But I am here to remind you that God is not man that HE should lie. God told you He would. He promised you something. He said He would do it, so HE will do it.
IN FACT, IT IS ALREADY DONE!
For we serve a God who is timeless, a God who WAS, IS, AND IS TO COME. So if you got a word that is to come, know that it is already done and you are only yet to see it manifest.
I am praying for you as I am praying for myself, may the Lord renew our minds today. May our hope be renewed and our confidence strengthened in our mighty God who has never failed. You can count on God’s word! He has done it before and we will see Him do it again, Only bigger than the last time in Jesus name. Amen!
