March 20, 2024 • 26 mins
What happens when it feels like everything around you is conspiring to steal your faith? Can you believe again even when the prayer didn't get answered the way you thought? How do you keep going when the challenges seem insurmountable?Â
In this thought-provoking episode, we confront these profound questions head-on. Join us as we delve into the depths of real life issues and discover the resilience required to stand firm in our faith.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Practical tips for holding onto your faith when things get tough.
- Ways to deal with the stuff that makes you doubt and feel down about your beliefs.
- How leaning on Jesus and trusting in His guidance can give you the strength to persevere through life's difficulties.
✨NEW HERE? ✨ Meet Jemese LaChel Drewery, LCSW, CCTP - Spirit-filled trauma expert and host of A New Creation Podcast. Through Christ-centered conversations and inspiring testimonies, Jemese guides women to healing, deeper faith, and freedom in Jesus Christ.
🎙 Do you have a faith story to share? Tap here and be our next guest!
CONNECT WITH JEMESE:
📸 Instagram: @jemeselachel
📘 Facebook: fb.com/graceabidesco
🧠Counseling: graceabides.co
🌱 Mentorship: jemeselachel.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jemese (00:00):
How do you not let the pressures of this world and all
the millions of things that awoman has on her plate day to
day right Like the, the battlesthat you go through, the
suffering that you're goingthrough, all of the things?
How do you not let that snuffout your light?
How do you not let thatovertake you?
How do you actually just standand persevere?
(00:22):
If you need help with this, ifyou need solutions for how to
keep moving forward, you don'twant to miss this episode.
Welcome to a new creationpodcast where we are pointing
women towards victory in Christ.
(00:44):
One Jesus story at a time.
My name is Jimmy Slashel.
I'm your host.
Let's dive right in Believeagain.
Someone out there needs tobelieve again.
It didn't work out the last time.
The pregnancy didn't work out,the relationship didn't work out
(01:05):
, the job didn't work out.
That thing you went out on alimb for and even took this deep
, big dive leap of faith.
You fell flat on your face.
It didn't work out.
Can you pick yourself up andbelieve again?
Can you shake the dust off yourfeet and believe again?
(01:27):
What has stolen your faith orbroken your heart?
We're going to talk about thistoday, but before we do.
Let's pray Most gracious andholy Father.
Lord, we come before you thisday.
I am praying for the listener,lord.
I pray that you would justsurround him or her with your
(01:51):
wraparound love, that you wouldmeet us in this place of peace,
that you would bless me to beyour vessel to speak out words
of hope and life andencouragement and the very
things that you want to bespoken, with nothing added,
nothing missing.
We thank you, we adore you, welove you and your powerful name,
(02:15):
amen.
So as I sit down to record this, I am feeling so emotional and
that could be in part becauseI'm still going through so much.
As I record this, I am stillmoving through the grief process
of losing my mom back inNovember, very unexpectedly.
My dad has been very sick thelast, I guess, four or five
(02:38):
months.
That's been a lot and at thesame time there's this hope in
Jesus and that is the struggle,if you want to call it that.
It's the unique thing aboutbeing a Christian.
We live in this sweet spot,this in-between spot of
(03:00):
navigating the realities of thislife that we're walking through
here, in this fallen worldwhere the Lord Jesus has come to
say the kingdom of God is athand.
We live in this spot, our eyeslocked on him in his glory and
(03:22):
his goodness.
Yet we move through theseseasons where it does feel like
suffering or it does feel veryheavy.
I've heard people preach thatwe should not suffer in this
life because Jesus came toremove all suffering, and I just
(03:47):
don't see it in the Bible, Idon't see it in the scriptures,
where he tells us that we're notgoing to suffer.
What I do see in the scripturesis that persecutions will come,
trials, tribulations,temptations will come, but the
Lord will deliver us out of themall.
He'll deliver his people out oftheir troubles.
(04:10):
That's what I see, and so wehave to learn to navigate that
space in a way where thepressures of this world do not
steal our faith.
What is it that you're goingthrough that would threaten to
(04:31):
steal your faith?
It threatens to steal your hope.
Perhaps it makes you weary.
You have been beating at thisthing again and again and again
and again.
Like an ice pick.
You've been picking away atthis thing, if you can imagine,
even like a boulder.
You've been like got a hammerin hand.
You are just picking away atthis thing, but it doesn't seem
(04:53):
to move those things, all yourprayers, all of your hopes, all
of those things like it doesn'tseem to be effective in working.
These can be real enemies ofour faith if we let them.
When we take our eyes off fromJesus, who told us don't look to
(05:15):
the right or to the left, butkeep your eyes straight ahead on
him, when we, like Peter, stepout onto the water, but then you
catch wind of the storm and youget more focused on the storm
and you start to feel likeyou're sinking, we have to
remember that God is with us,that Jesus is still with us even
in those moments.
And when that happens, yourecognize my God is still here,
(05:43):
my God is still with me, he'sstill right there.
You reach out for him, you drawnear to him.
He draws near to you.
He's the only power that cansave us, he's the only one who
can heal us.
And you really almost have toreframe in your own mind.
(06:04):
You really have to almost beyour own coach, your own life
coach in those moments,encouraging yourself,
championing for yourself, inthose moments that now I'm going
to believe with the word of Godsays yet the storm Wages on.
(06:25):
What do you do when the stormWages on, even if, even when you
are doing everything that youcan to stay faithful.
I think that we don't talk aboutthis enough.
Definitely, as believers andeven those who don't know Jesus
like this I just feel like wedon't talk about it enough and
(06:52):
really, if we're going to put aword on it, we're really talking
about perseverance, the abilityto keep going.
I'm a definition scout, so I'mgoing to look up what
perseverance actually means.
Perseverance in the OxfordLanguages dictionary means
(07:13):
persistence in doing something,despite difficulty or delay in
achieving success.
I always like to go to the BlueLetter Bible and see the
biblical definitions of words,so I'm going to go there as well
and look up perseverance.
Okay, so in the Hebrew,perseverance means to be
(07:34):
adherent, to be devoted orconstant to one.
It means to be steadfastlyattentive to something.
It means to give unremittingcare to a thing, to continue all
the time in a place, topersevere.
Not think it's talking aboutstaying power.
It's talking about beingunremitting.
(07:55):
But the thing aboutperseverance is we don't know
how to do that.
Without Jesus, we can'tpersevere in a thing.
Without Him, we can't do it inour own strength, because we
were never meant to carry theburdens of this world and life
on our shoulders.
(08:16):
The Lord designed His peoplethat he was the burden bearer.
He says come to me, all of youwho are weary, laden and heavy
burdened, and I will give yourest.
That's the perseverance youpersevere unto Christ.
But how do you do that?
Right?
How do you actually do thatwhen the storms of this life are
(08:38):
beating you down?
How do you do that when itfeels like everything that
you're praying for it's just notworking?
Or I'll say worse, becausewe're just keeping it real?
You felt like that sometimes,the things that you're praying
for somebody else gets yourprayer.
What do you do with that?
You know you're supposed tobless that person and rejoice
(09:01):
and all of that kind of thing,but the reality is it's not
always easy to do that.
That's the Christian log.
This is the real life stuffthat God wants us to get real
about and it's the stuff that Ilove working with women during
our one-on-one sessions as atherapist and a mentor, because
you can go into a churchatmosphere, you can go into a
(09:23):
community of believers and youcan talk the talk.
But what are you doing in yourprivate time, in the four walls
of your house with your lovedones, who get to see who you
really are when the pressures ofthis life are not going to
actually doorstep.
I'm challenging you to do this,to believe again.
(09:46):
I'm challenging you to takeyour eyes off of what didn't
happen, take your eyes off ofwhat went wrong and believe
again.
Galatians 6, chapter 9, says andlet us not grow weary while
doing good, for in due season weshall reap if we do not lose
(10:09):
heart.
How many things have beendesigned to lose heart.
You know what one of ourfavorite prayers to say as
believers is no weapon formedagainst me shall prosper.
Don't you know that there's aweapon formed against you to
cause you to lose hearts?
(10:29):
What if those circumstances inyour life, that thing that
didn't break when you said thatpowerful prayer, that thing that
you asked God to remove out ofyour life but he didn't remove
it, that terrible thing thathappened, that break up, that
child who just you're hurt overhow they live in their life, or
(10:53):
whatever?
The thing is that you've beengoing into the secret place and
asking God about what if thatwas designed to cause you to
lose hearts.
You have to tell yourself I'mgoing to believe again, even
though it didn't work this timeor last time.
(11:13):
I'm choosing to believe again.
Believe what?
Believe that God is good,believe that His Word is true,
believe that he's still holy.
I'm choosing to believe againthat since the Lord woke me up
to see this day and that Hismercies are new every morning.
I'm choosing to believe thatthere's purpose for me.
(11:33):
I'm choosing to believe thatGod is still on the throne in
Christ Jesus.
I'm choosing to believe thatJesus Christ knows me by name
and I'm still safe and protectedand loved by Him.
You may have to encourageyourself so that you remain on
(11:54):
your faith walk.
You may have to do that.
One perfect example of this isin the Psalms.
David, over and over again inthe scriptures, encourages
himself.
If you look at any of thePsalms, really but I'm looking
at Psalm 27, david isencouraging himself through the
(12:16):
declarations of his faith,starting with verse one the Lord
is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of mylife.
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against meto eat up my flesh, my enemies
and foes, they stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encampagainst me, my heart shall not
(12:37):
fear.
The war may rise against me,and this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of theLord that I will.
I seek I may dwell in the houseof the Lord all the days of my
life to behold the beauty of theLord and to inquire in his
temple.
What you're seeing is Davidpivoting his focus from the
problems of his experience andputting his focus squarely on
(13:02):
the Lord Jesus and who he is.
When we focus on our problems,they amplify.
When we focus on the devil andwhat the devil is doing, that
focus amplifies when we focus onKing Jesus.
We focus on the Holy Spirit, wefocus on our Abba Father.
This what God amplifies in ourlife.
(13:25):
We exalt Jesus and so we haveto learn to use our own language
, to use the words of our mouth,to speak life, even into and
over ourselves.
I will believe again.
I will believe again.
The Lord has given you a will.
(13:46):
You have a will for that.
You can use.
You have a will.
You have will power.
You can choose not to allowyour emotions or the experiences
of life to tear you apart.
(14:09):
You can choose, by your will,to trust God even when it feels
like you're being crushed,especially when it feels like
you're being crushed.
We will go through seasons ofcrushing and in that crushing is
uncomfortable but we get sooily that's how the oil gets
(14:33):
made.
Through that crushing, the oilstarts to drip.
Through that crushing you getturned into something so
beautiful to Jesus and theexperiences and things that
we've been through in life.
(14:53):
They become a story that wetell, and there's the Lord who
perseveres.
I love Psalm 121.
Psalm 121, the title, theheading in my Bible says God,
the help of those who seek Him,and it reads I will lift up my
(15:15):
eyes to the hills.
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the Lord,who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot tobe moved.
He who keeps you will notslumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israelshall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade at yourright hand.
The sun shall not strike you byday, nor the moon by night.
(15:36):
The Lord shall preserve youfrom all evil.
He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve yourgoing out and your coming in
from this time forth and evenforever more.
Do you know what that speaks to?
That speaks to security.
All of these things that happenin life.
Death, disappointment,discouragement these things can
(16:04):
very easily, if you let them,knock you off your block, like
knock you off your path.
If you let it, when you putyour eyes on that and allow it
to amplify, that it becomes apredominant voice in your life,
(16:27):
it can seem impossible to moveforward.
It can seem like somethingdesigned literally to take you
out and you think aboutsomething like grief.
That's something that I ammoving through.
How easy it would be to wallowin one's grief.
But God is an ever present help.
(16:50):
He has always been the one whois supposed to be our security,
our protector, our defender, ourrefuge, our stronghold, our
strong tower, the one that werun to, the one who is able to
handle our emotions, because hemade us.
Nobody knows you moreintimately than the Lord, god
(17:13):
Almighty, who created you.
Turn to Him, believe again, evenif it hurts what you've gone
through, if it hurts thedisappointment.
Believe again, pick it up again, do it again, pray again, tell
(17:35):
what you've prayed and it didn'tseem like anything happened.
Pray again, praise him again,do it again, because in due time
you will receive your reward.
There will be a harvest in duetime If you do not lose heart,
(17:59):
if you do not lose heart, keepthe faith.
You have to decide in yourheart that you are not going to
allow the storms of life tosteal your faith.
You have to decide it.
But you are not going to allowany scheme of Satan to steal
from you the promise of God foryour life.
(18:20):
You have to decide that that'susing your will.
The Lord gave you willpower.
You have to decide to use it.
The weapons of our warfare arenot carnal, but they are mighty
in God for the pulling down ofstrongholds.
You have to do it.
(18:42):
Make the decision to believeagain.
Rise up to who you are inChrist Jesus.
Do it again.
Step out again.
So what?
It didn't work last time?
Get up and believe again, prayagain.
(19:06):
Perseverance I'm reminded of inRomans 5.
Romans 5 in the NIV says thatwe glory in our sufferings
because we know that sufferingproduces perseverance and
perseverance, character andcharacter, hope.
And hope does not put us toshame, because God's love has
been poured into our heartsthrough the Holy Spirit.
(19:29):
Or I like to say it like thisthe KJV says God's love has been
shed abroad in our hearts.
God's love has been shed abroadin our hearts through Christ or
through the Holy Spirit, god'slove has been shed abroad in our
hearts.
Through the Holy Spirit,understand that everything that
(19:52):
you're going through, the Lorddoesn't waste any of it.
He doesn't need the devil'sschemes.
You know all the bad things oflife.
He doesn't need that to producefruit in you, oh.
But he is certainly allpowerful to take those bad
things that have been designedto tear you down or tear you
(20:15):
apart.
Or he is all powerful to takethose things and turn it for
good, to cause you to persevere,to cause your character to grow
, to cause you to have hope, anda hope that won't put you to
shame.
So I encourage you to loveagain, believe again, pick up
(20:36):
your cross and walk again.
Keep going.
Don't deny your emotions.
If it hurts, it hurts.
Don't deny that.
Maybe you're even angry.
If you're mad, you're mad.
We don't want to talk aboutanger, but if you're mad, you're
(20:58):
mad.
You know we don't do any favorsby denying that we are angry
about something.
It's not giving the devil afoothold.
You know what gives the devil afoothold when you lie, when you
lie about how you feel, whenyou try to spiritually bypass.
I just learned that phraseactually comes from a Buddhist
(21:19):
psychology.
That's not even a Christianterm spiritual bypass.
We weren't designed to functionthat way.
We were not designed tofunction in such a way that
we're not keeping an absolutehundred with God.
He wants you to keep it realwith Him.
(21:41):
He doesn't want you to lie andsay that you're not, to say that
you're not mad or that you'renot suffering or that you aren't
battling lust.
That's the devil, that's theenemy trying to keep you stuck
exactly where you are Becauseyou feel like it's inappropriate
or un-Christian or ungodly orunbiblical to confess those
(22:04):
things.
You're confession of thosethings.
That's the invitation for theLord to step in and do His
wonder-working power.
Your denial of those things,like they're not going on, it's
like slamming the door shut whenJesus is knocking at that door
and saying Honey, won't you givethis to me, I'll carry you,
(22:29):
just give this to me.
We have to confess that kind ofstuff.
I don't know what you'relistening to this podcast for,
like why the Lord had sent you.
I just know that, if you'relistening to this podcast, that
the Lord wants to ministersomething to you specifically
through this word Get real withHim about what you're feeling.
(22:50):
Get real with your therapist.
Stop lying to yourself.
Stop lying to God.
Cry out to Him, lament.
You don't know how to do that.
Use Psalm 13 as a template,voice your complaints, and then
(23:18):
you go into radical praise.
Lord, I will praise you anyways, I will trust you anyways, I
will believe again anyways, Iwill step out in faith anyways,
I will go on again anyways.
This is how you, this is howyou wage your warfare, this is
(23:41):
how you win.
You don't let the waves of life, the storms of life, take you
out.
Instead, you take it straightto the master.
You take all of those thingsstraight to the Lord, god
Almighty.
He will lift you, he willdeliver you, he will save you,
(24:01):
he will keep you, he will blessyou.
He is your God, he's a good,good father.
Believe again, father.
I pray right now for thelistener who feels stuck in
despair, stuck in darkness.
(24:22):
In the name of Jesus, I commandthe hold.
That darkness has to be loosed.
Now, in the name of Jesus, Ibreak the bonds of darkness by
the power of the cross and theblood of Jesus and that powerful
name Break now.
(24:43):
In the name of Jesus, father, Ilift this listener, this one,
oh God, and I ask you, lordJesus, to pour out your spirit
and greater measure.
I ask you, lord Jesus, torescue this one.
(25:05):
I ask you, Lord Jesus, toreveal yourself strong and true
and mighty to this one.
I ask you, lord Jesus, to sendlaborers into the harvest
running after this one.
Strengthen this one, oh God,heal this one.
(25:25):
In the mighty name of Jesus, wepray Amen.
I want to thank you forlistening to this podcast.
If you need help and you wantto work one-on-one with a
Christian mentor, or if you'rein the state of Missouri and you
(25:45):
want to work with a Christiancounselor, go to graceabidesco.
I book a consultation.
I will leave a link in the shownotes so that you can do that
and maybe we can have one a 15minute call and see how to get
you some individualized support.
(26:06):
In the meantime, I just want tothank you for tuning in and I
pray that the Lord will blessyou and keep you until we meet
again.
How do you not let the pressures of this world and all
the millions of things that awoman has on her plate day to
day right Like the, the battlesthat you go through, the
suffering that you're goingthrough, all of the things?
How do you not let that snuffout your light?
How do you not let thatovertake you?
How do you actually just standand persevere?
(00:22):
If you need help with this, ifyou need solutions for how to
keep moving forward, you don'twant to miss this episode.
Welcome to a new creationpodcast where we are pointing
women towards victory in Christ.
(00:44):
One Jesus story at a time.
My name is Jimmy Slashel.
I'm your host.
Let's dive right in Believeagain.
Someone out there needs tobelieve again.
It didn't work out the last time.
The pregnancy didn't work out,the relationship didn't work out
(01:05):
, the job didn't work out.
That thing you went out on alimb for and even took this deep
, big dive leap of faith.
You fell flat on your face.
It didn't work out.
Can you pick yourself up andbelieve again?
Can you shake the dust off yourfeet and believe again?
(01:27):
What has stolen your faith orbroken your heart?
We're going to talk about thistoday, but before we do.
Let's pray Most gracious andholy Father.
Lord, we come before you thisday.
I am praying for the listener,lord.
I pray that you would justsurround him or her with your
(01:51):
wraparound love, that you wouldmeet us in this place of peace,
that you would bless me to beyour vessel to speak out words
of hope and life andencouragement and the very
things that you want to bespoken, with nothing added,
nothing missing.
We thank you, we adore you, welove you and your powerful name,
(02:15):
amen.
So as I sit down to record this, I am feeling so emotional and
that could be in part becauseI'm still going through so much.
As I record this, I am stillmoving through the grief process
of losing my mom back inNovember, very unexpectedly.
My dad has been very sick thelast, I guess, four or five
(02:38):
months.
That's been a lot and at thesame time there's this hope in
Jesus and that is the struggle,if you want to call it that.
It's the unique thing aboutbeing a Christian.
We live in this sweet spot,this in-between spot of
(03:00):
navigating the realities of thislife that we're walking through
here, in this fallen worldwhere the Lord Jesus has come to
say the kingdom of God is athand.
We live in this spot, our eyeslocked on him in his glory and
(03:22):
his goodness.
Yet we move through theseseasons where it does feel like
suffering or it does feel veryheavy.
I've heard people preach thatwe should not suffer in this
life because Jesus came toremove all suffering, and I just
(03:47):
don't see it in the Bible, Idon't see it in the scriptures,
where he tells us that we're notgoing to suffer.
What I do see in the scripturesis that persecutions will come,
trials, tribulations,temptations will come, but the
Lord will deliver us out of themall.
He'll deliver his people out oftheir troubles.
(04:10):
That's what I see, and so wehave to learn to navigate that
space in a way where thepressures of this world do not
steal our faith.
What is it that you're goingthrough that would threaten to
(04:31):
steal your faith?
It threatens to steal your hope.
Perhaps it makes you weary.
You have been beating at thisthing again and again and again
and again.
Like an ice pick.
You've been picking away atthis thing, if you can imagine,
even like a boulder.
You've been like got a hammerin hand.
You are just picking away atthis thing, but it doesn't seem
(04:53):
to move those things, all yourprayers, all of your hopes, all
of those things like it doesn'tseem to be effective in working.
These can be real enemies ofour faith if we let them.
When we take our eyes off fromJesus, who told us don't look to
(05:15):
the right or to the left, butkeep your eyes straight ahead on
him, when we, like Peter, stepout onto the water, but then you
catch wind of the storm and youget more focused on the storm
and you start to feel likeyou're sinking, we have to
remember that God is with us,that Jesus is still with us even
in those moments.
And when that happens, yourecognize my God is still here,
(05:43):
my God is still with me, he'sstill right there.
You reach out for him, you drawnear to him.
He draws near to you.
He's the only power that cansave us, he's the only one who
can heal us.
And you really almost have toreframe in your own mind.
(06:04):
You really have to almost beyour own coach, your own life
coach in those moments,encouraging yourself,
championing for yourself, inthose moments that now I'm going
to believe with the word of Godsays yet the storm Wages on.
(06:25):
What do you do when the stormWages on, even if, even when you
are doing everything that youcan to stay faithful.
I think that we don't talk aboutthis enough.
Definitely, as believers andeven those who don't know Jesus
like this I just feel like wedon't talk about it enough and
(06:52):
really, if we're going to put aword on it, we're really talking
about perseverance, the abilityto keep going.
I'm a definition scout, so I'mgoing to look up what
perseverance actually means.
Perseverance in the OxfordLanguages dictionary means
(07:13):
persistence in doing something,despite difficulty or delay in
achieving success.
I always like to go to the BlueLetter Bible and see the
biblical definitions of words,so I'm going to go there as well
and look up perseverance.
Okay, so in the Hebrew,perseverance means to be
(07:34):
adherent, to be devoted orconstant to one.
It means to be steadfastlyattentive to something.
It means to give unremittingcare to a thing, to continue all
the time in a place, topersevere.
Not think it's talking aboutstaying power.
It's talking about beingunremitting.
(07:55):
But the thing aboutperseverance is we don't know
how to do that.
Without Jesus, we can'tpersevere in a thing.
Without Him, we can't do it inour own strength, because we
were never meant to carry theburdens of this world and life
on our shoulders.
(08:16):
The Lord designed His peoplethat he was the burden bearer.
He says come to me, all of youwho are weary, laden and heavy
burdened, and I will give yourest.
That's the perseverance youpersevere unto Christ.
But how do you do that?
Right?
How do you actually do thatwhen the storms of this life are
(08:38):
beating you down?
How do you do that when itfeels like everything that
you're praying for it's just notworking?
Or I'll say worse, becausewe're just keeping it real?
You felt like that sometimes,the things that you're praying
for somebody else gets yourprayer.
What do you do with that?
You know you're supposed tobless that person and rejoice
(09:01):
and all of that kind of thing,but the reality is it's not
always easy to do that.
That's the Christian log.
This is the real life stuffthat God wants us to get real
about and it's the stuff that Ilove working with women during
our one-on-one sessions as atherapist and a mentor, because
you can go into a churchatmosphere, you can go into a
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community of believers and youcan talk the talk.
But what are you doing in yourprivate time, in the four walls
of your house with your lovedones, who get to see who you
really are when the pressures ofthis life are not going to
actually doorstep.
I'm challenging you to do this,to believe again.
(09:46):
I'm challenging you to takeyour eyes off of what didn't
happen, take your eyes off ofwhat went wrong and believe
again.
Galatians 6, chapter 9, says andlet us not grow weary while
doing good, for in due season weshall reap if we do not lose
(10:09):
heart.
How many things have beendesigned to lose heart.
You know what one of ourfavorite prayers to say as
believers is no weapon formedagainst me shall prosper.
Don't you know that there's aweapon formed against you to
cause you to lose hearts?
(10:29):
What if those circumstances inyour life, that thing that
didn't break when you said thatpowerful prayer, that thing that
you asked God to remove out ofyour life but he didn't remove
it, that terrible thing thathappened, that break up, that
child who just you're hurt overhow they live in their life, or
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whatever?
The thing is that you've beengoing into the secret place and
asking God about what if thatwas designed to cause you to
lose hearts.
You have to tell yourself I'mgoing to believe again, even
though it didn't work this timeor last time.
(11:13):
I'm choosing to believe again.
Believe what?
Believe that God is good,believe that His Word is true,
believe that he's still holy.
I'm choosing to believe againthat since the Lord woke me up
to see this day and that Hismercies are new every morning.
I'm choosing to believe thatthere's purpose for me.
(11:33):
I'm choosing to believe thatGod is still on the throne in
Christ Jesus.
I'm choosing to believe thatJesus Christ knows me by name
and I'm still safe and protectedand loved by Him.
You may have to encourageyourself so that you remain on
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your faith walk.
You may have to do that.
One perfect example of this isin the Psalms.
David, over and over again inthe scriptures, encourages
himself.
If you look at any of thePsalms, really but I'm looking
at Psalm 27, david isencouraging himself through the
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declarations of his faith,starting with verse one the Lord
is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of mylife.
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against meto eat up my flesh, my enemies
and foes, they stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encampagainst me, my heart shall not
(12:37):
fear.
The war may rise against me,and this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of theLord that I will.
I seek I may dwell in the houseof the Lord all the days of my
life to behold the beauty of theLord and to inquire in his
temple.
What you're seeing is Davidpivoting his focus from the
problems of his experience andputting his focus squarely on
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the Lord Jesus and who he is.
When we focus on our problems,they amplify.
When we focus on the devil andwhat the devil is doing, that
focus amplifies when we focus onKing Jesus.
We focus on the Holy Spirit, wefocus on our Abba Father.
This what God amplifies in ourlife.
(13:25):
We exalt Jesus and so we haveto learn to use our own language
, to use the words of our mouth,to speak life, even into and
over ourselves.
I will believe again.
I will believe again.
The Lord has given you a will.
(13:46):
You have a will for that.
You can use.
You have a will.
You have will power.
You can choose not to allowyour emotions or the experiences
of life to tear you apart.
(14:09):
You can choose, by your will,to trust God even when it feels
like you're being crushed,especially when it feels like
you're being crushed.
We will go through seasons ofcrushing and in that crushing is
uncomfortable but we get sooily that's how the oil gets
(14:33):
made.
Through that crushing, the oilstarts to drip.
Through that crushing you getturned into something so
beautiful to Jesus and theexperiences and things that
we've been through in life.
(14:53):
They become a story that wetell, and there's the Lord who
perseveres.
I love Psalm 121.
Psalm 121, the title, theheading in my Bible says God,
the help of those who seek Him,and it reads I will lift up my
(15:15):
eyes to the hills.
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the Lord,who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot tobe moved.
He who keeps you will notslumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israelshall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade at yourright hand.
The sun shall not strike you byday, nor the moon by night.
(15:36):
The Lord shall preserve youfrom all evil.
He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve yourgoing out and your coming in
from this time forth and evenforever more.
Do you know what that speaks to?
That speaks to security.
All of these things that happenin life.
Death, disappointment,discouragement these things can
(16:04):
very easily, if you let them,knock you off your block, like
knock you off your path.
If you let it, when you putyour eyes on that and allow it
to amplify, that it becomes apredominant voice in your life,
(16:27):
it can seem impossible to moveforward.
It can seem like somethingdesigned literally to take you
out and you think aboutsomething like grief.
That's something that I ammoving through.
How easy it would be to wallowin one's grief.
But God is an ever present help.
(16:50):
He has always been the one whois supposed to be our security,
our protector, our defender, ourrefuge, our stronghold, our
strong tower, the one that werun to, the one who is able to
handle our emotions, because hemade us.
Nobody knows you moreintimately than the Lord, god
(17:13):
Almighty, who created you.
Turn to Him, believe again, evenif it hurts what you've gone
through, if it hurts thedisappointment.
Believe again, pick it up again, do it again, pray again, tell
(17:35):
what you've prayed and it didn'tseem like anything happened.
Pray again, praise him again,do it again, because in due time
you will receive your reward.
There will be a harvest in duetime If you do not lose heart,
(17:59):
if you do not lose heart, keepthe faith.
You have to decide in yourheart that you are not going to
allow the storms of life tosteal your faith.
You have to decide it.
But you are not going to allowany scheme of Satan to steal
from you the promise of God foryour life.
(18:20):
You have to decide that that'susing your will.
The Lord gave you willpower.
You have to decide to use it.
The weapons of our warfare arenot carnal, but they are mighty
in God for the pulling down ofstrongholds.
You have to do it.
(18:42):
Make the decision to believeagain.
Rise up to who you are inChrist Jesus.
Do it again.
Step out again.
So what?
It didn't work last time?
Get up and believe again, prayagain.
(19:06):
Perseverance I'm reminded of inRomans 5.
Romans 5 in the NIV says thatwe glory in our sufferings
because we know that sufferingproduces perseverance and
perseverance, character andcharacter, hope.
And hope does not put us toshame, because God's love has
been poured into our heartsthrough the Holy Spirit.
(19:29):
Or I like to say it like thisthe KJV says God's love has been
shed abroad in our hearts.
God's love has been shed abroadin our hearts through Christ or
through the Holy Spirit, god'slove has been shed abroad in our
hearts.
Through the Holy Spirit,understand that everything that
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you're going through, the Lorddoesn't waste any of it.
He doesn't need the devil'sschemes.
You know all the bad things oflife.
He doesn't need that to producefruit in you, oh.
But he is certainly allpowerful to take those bad
things that have been designedto tear you down or tear you
(20:15):
apart.
Or he is all powerful to takethose things and turn it for
good, to cause you to persevere,to cause your character to grow
, to cause you to have hope, anda hope that won't put you to
shame.
So I encourage you to loveagain, believe again, pick up
(20:36):
your cross and walk again.
Keep going.
Don't deny your emotions.
If it hurts, it hurts.
Don't deny that.
Maybe you're even angry.
If you're mad, you're mad.
We don't want to talk aboutanger, but if you're mad, you're
(20:58):
mad.
You know we don't do any favorsby denying that we are angry
about something.
It's not giving the devil afoothold.
You know what gives the devil afoothold when you lie, when you
lie about how you feel, whenyou try to spiritually bypass.
I just learned that phraseactually comes from a Buddhist
(21:19):
psychology.
That's not even a Christianterm spiritual bypass.
We weren't designed to functionthat way.
We were not designed tofunction in such a way that
we're not keeping an absolutehundred with God.
He wants you to keep it realwith Him.
(21:41):
He doesn't want you to lie andsay that you're not, to say that
you're not mad or that you'renot suffering or that you aren't
battling lust.
That's the devil, that's theenemy trying to keep you stuck
exactly where you are Becauseyou feel like it's inappropriate
or un-Christian or ungodly orunbiblical to confess those
(22:04):
things.
You're confession of thosethings.
That's the invitation for theLord to step in and do His
wonder-working power.
Your denial of those things,like they're not going on, it's
like slamming the door shut whenJesus is knocking at that door
and saying Honey, won't you givethis to me, I'll carry you,
(22:29):
just give this to me.
We have to confess that kind ofstuff.
I don't know what you'relistening to this podcast for,
like why the Lord had sent you.
I just know that, if you'relistening to this podcast, that
the Lord wants to ministersomething to you specifically
through this word Get real withHim about what you're feeling.
(22:50):
Get real with your therapist.
Stop lying to yourself.
Stop lying to God.
Cry out to Him, lament.
You don't know how to do that.
Use Psalm 13 as a template,voice your complaints, and then
(23:18):
you go into radical praise.
Lord, I will praise you anyways, I will trust you anyways, I
will believe again anyways, Iwill step out in faith anyways,
I will go on again anyways.
This is how you, this is howyou wage your warfare, this is
(23:41):
how you win.
You don't let the waves of life, the storms of life, take you
out.
Instead, you take it straightto the master.
You take all of those thingsstraight to the Lord, god
Almighty.
He will lift you, he willdeliver you, he will save you,
(24:01):
he will keep you, he will blessyou.
He is your God, he's a good,good father.
Believe again, father.
I pray right now for thelistener who feels stuck in
despair, stuck in darkness.
(24:22):
In the name of Jesus, I commandthe hold.
That darkness has to be loosed.
Now, in the name of Jesus, Ibreak the bonds of darkness by
the power of the cross and theblood of Jesus and that powerful
name Break now.
(24:43):
In the name of Jesus, father, Ilift this listener, this one,
oh God, and I ask you, lordJesus, to pour out your spirit
and greater measure.
I ask you, lord Jesus, torescue this one.
(25:05):
I ask you, Lord Jesus, toreveal yourself strong and true
and mighty to this one.
I ask you, lord Jesus, to sendlaborers into the harvest
running after this one.
Strengthen this one, oh God,heal this one.
(25:25):
In the mighty name of Jesus, wepray Amen.
I want to thank you forlistening to this podcast.
If you need help and you wantto work one-on-one with a
Christian mentor, or if you'rein the state of Missouri and you
(25:45):
want to work with a Christiancounselor, go to graceabidesco.
I book a consultation.
I will leave a link in the shownotes so that you can do that
and maybe we can have one a 15minute call and see how to get
you some individualized support.
(26:06):
In the meantime, I just want tothank you for tuning in and I
pray that the Lord will blessyou and keep you until we meet
again.
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