I hope that when you wake up one morning, and things are not going the way you planned, you do not forget that God has carried you this far. I hope you do not forget that His mercy sustained you when you could not sustain yourself (Lamentations 3:22–23). I hope you do not forget that His grace was sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:9), and that the reason you even woke up on a difficult day is that His mercy did not fail.
If you admire what someone else has, celebrate them. You may not have what they have, but you have God in that area. That person you are admiring does not have something you have. They have God filling up their own areas, just as you have Him filling yours. Every place where you feel empty, God is saying, “I will not leave you. I will not forsake you. You have Me.” So He becomes what fills whatever you think you are lacking.
Beloved, I am inclined to believe that peace is not just what you get at the end. Peace is not something God gives you just to manage you while you wait for the “real” answer. I believe peace is the answer, especially when anxiety is the problem. Because what an anxious person needs is peace.
Where many of us struggle is not whether God will deliver us. We know that. Our struggle is when exactly He will deliver us.
I know You will deliver me, but how long will this affliction last? Can I have a date? Can I have a timeline? Can You show me heaven’s calendar so I know when this season will end? That is where the challenge is. God says He will deliver, but He rarely tells us when.
Now, a righteous person, post-Jesus, is not just somebody who does good things. It’s not somebody who is just morally right or justifiable, like we often saw in the Old Testament. A righteous person, post-Jesus, is a person who has received Jesus and has received the gift of righteousness. That person is in right standing with God. All of their sin was eliminated and erased the moment they embraced Jesus and became a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).
A righteous person is someone who wears and carries the nature of Jesus. When God looks at that person, what He sees is Jesus. And that person is the one the Word says will experience pain, distress, and discomfort. A good person.
If you are not careful, you can get excited about the promise and completely miss the responsibility attached to it. And this is because God often calls us into partnership with Him. Yes, some promises seem unconditional, but even then, faith and/or obedience are still involved. And that in itself is a clause. If you do not obey the clause, you will not enjoy the promise. There is no two ways about it.
If you want to eat the good of the land, then you must be willing and obedient (Isaiah 1:19). You have to obey His word, because He will speak behind you. You will hear a voice saying, “This is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21). It is in following those instructions that you begin to see the good He has already placed in the land for you.
If He says go left and you go right, how will you see the good that is on the left? He is leading you because He knows exactly where the good of the land is.
Beloved, trusting God in all areas of your life is possible. Yes, you may not do it all at once in one time. You might have to do it gradually.
This sacrifice of praise is offered through Christ. This is not something you are expected to do by your own strength. You cannot offer this kind of praise through sheer willpower. You must lean on Christ. You must rely on His strength, His Spirit, and His finished work.
One thing a broken heart does is trap you in a cycle of despair and pain. It affects your ability to have faith and believe God again because of repeated disappointments. That is why God heals broken hearts. He knows how difficult it is to let go of brokenheartedness. But He promises to heal you. He wants to bind your wounds, if you can trust Him.
Sometimes we calculate closeness based on feelings. But feelings are not reliable indicators of God’s presence. The Word is. God said He would never leave you nor forsake you, and He meant it. He said when you go through deep waters, He will be with you.