Wham!
A kick to my ribs, a slap to my face, a knife to my heart.
That is how it has felt the past month or so in my own little world.
Like a piece of broken glass, sharp and rough-edged, cutting into my skin, into my psyche, into my inner being.
A few days before this proverbial storm began in my life, I woke up crying. For two mornings straight, I cried and cried for no apparent reason. Heavily.
Call me kooky, call me silly - I don’t mind either way - but I believe my spirit sensed the storm that was coming before it tangibly arrived on my doorstep.
I always tell people there are three things happening in every circumstance that we should be asking about: what is my flesh doing, what is the enemy doing, and what is God doing?
All three are pertinent, and you will find all three at work in any given scenario.
Flesh.
Devil.
God.
The harder the trials, the more complex it can get to wade through and determine which feeling, which thought, which circumstance goes in which category.
This is why we desperately need the Holy Spirit (the revealer of all truth) and the word of God (the unshakeable, unchangeable truth we live by) to help us discern.
When it all feels upside down, God’s word remains the same.
When it all feels overwhelming and confusing, the Spirit of God remains clear and direct.
Without discernment from the Spirit of God, it is impossible to know whether a trial is a natural result of living in a fallen world, or if it is sent on direct demonic assignment.
Either way, we can remain sure of this: God works all things together for our good. Romans 8:28
This isn’t one of those writing pieces where I feel it necessary, or perhaps even healthy for my own heart, to chronicle all the details of what this small season has entailed; although I imagine there will be stories from this time that will spill out in days to come, as the spirit leads.
This piece is more about the big picture than the tiny details.
It is more about the inner fortifying than the flesh and bones.
It is more about what is happening, rather than what has happened.
And ultimately, this writing is about perseverance.
When everything began to speed up and “hit the fan” so to speak, I sought the Lord’s voice.
What is happening? What do you want my heart posture to be right now?
I heard the inner voice of the Spirit direct me to read James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
A few months earlier, I had one of the most intense prophetic dreams of my life. In that dream, God revealed a “severe spiritual attack.” I was not experiencing anything like that at the time, and the contents of the dream puzzled me. I prayed into the dream for direction and the Lord asked me to intercede over what He had shown me. That’s what I did, and then I shelved the dream.
Suddenly, the past month, the dream made sense. I was grateful the Lord had made it clear ahead of time that the storm I was facing was demonic in nature, and would require warring in the spirit. It is always comforting to know the Lord goes before you and prepares you.
My point in sharing this is that I knew there was a spiritual nature to the intensity of what began happening in my world, but there were many practical elements as well: I am very pregnant and hormonal, the flesh nature of others was impacting me, and my life is currently in the middle of many significant changes.
So when I was led to James 1:4, the picture became fuller of how I was to posture myself in the middle of this:
Go to war, because it is a spiritual attack
and
Endure the hardship as something God is using to discipline you in perseverance.
God uses every arrow of the enemy for our good. Nothing is wasted when you serve the Lord.
You see, while the enemy is trying to do something TO us, God is doing something IN us.
When I began to meditate on perseverance, and live out a small season that required much of it, the Spirit really began to break open deeper revelation for me.
Perseverance is a form of patience- patient endurance, in fact.
Patience in pain.
Patience in waiting.
Patience in pushing for the breakthrough.
Patience in what feels hard, complex, and impossible to get through.
Patience to be fortified, strengthened, and empowered.
Before things got really sticky, the Holy Spirit was highlighting a theme of faith to me.
It has been a reverberating theme all year long, but this time, the Lord was centering me on the fact that my personal faith in Christ and His work on the cross, was protected, preserved, and empowered by Him.
The truth he had me centered on was His power and ability to keep my faith secure.
The scripture that kept prophetically popping up in my life was this:
..let us run with endurance (or perseverance) the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.. Hebrews 12:1-2
It just kept coming up.
Another scripture that started ringing in my spirit is found in Luke 22:31-34
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
God was preparing my heart to recognize what I would be facing.
If we are in step with His Spirit and listening for His voice, we cannot miss it. He is diligent in speaking into our circumstances, even though that sometimes sounds or looks different than we thought it might.
As the days went on, I watched as the fight for my faith began to take shape in front of me; in every area of my life.
The attack came swiftly and succinctly into each area that I had been standing in faith. It was as if there were specific, poisonous arrows of death and doubt directed at every area in my life that God had spoken life and promise into.
A couple months ago a woman that I have recently become friends with, who is new to the faith, started speaking to me about doubt and the attack she has felt where the enemy is trying to convince her that Jesus is not good or true. The attack she was experiencing was aimed to dismantle the truth she had come to know- that Jesus is her Savior and the character of God is ultimately good and faithful.
As we talked, I mentioned that I have also struggled with doubt.
She looked at me incredulously and said: “Really? You struggle with doubt?”
I’m not sure who was more shocked: her, disbelieving that I, a women’s faith mentor and fiery lover of God, could possess doubt - or me, shocked that someone would believe there is a magic day where you become exempt from all doubt on the journey of faith.
Doubt is a part of the war against our faith.
I explained to her that my struggle was different than hers. I no longer doubted God’s character or reality. These “immature” struggles with doubt (as described in Hebrews 6) are something I once battled through. As I’ve grown in my faith, doubt and struggles with faith look different than they once did, as God has worked to widen the lens through which I perceive His abilities and promises in my life.
Why am I telling you this?
Because it’s important, as followers of Jesus, that we do not pretend we have somehow made it past the point of ever experiencing doubt.
Even those who possess the most powerful gift of faith that scripture speaks of have a human brain that must be trained to see, live, and act in the spirit versus the natural.
Doubt occurs for all of us, we just have to exercise our faith over it.
This is where the process of perseverance comes in.
Remember what James said?
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Perseverance is part of the call to be formed in maturity.
And how else can perseverance be forged if not through the endurance of difficult circumstances?
There is no other way.
The Holy Spirit began to develop and open up my understanding of this good process of fortifying my faith with cross-referencing scripture in Hebrews.
Right after the passage in Hebrews 12 where we are encouraged in recognizing Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith, we begin to read about the Lord disciplining his children.
Previously, anytime I’ve read this passage, I have attributed this discipline to doing something wrong. We only need to be disciplined if we are doing the wrong things… so that we can do the right things…. Right?
That can absolutely be true, but discipline is not always connected to correcting our wrong-doing; it can simply be connected to God shaping and forming us in maturity.
The Holy Spirit challenged me as he applied this scripture to my current circumstance and season of such hardship.
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. Hebrews 12:7
Notice, again, the theme of hardship being an aspect of our spiritual formation…..
The word of God counsels us that our endurance through hardship should be viewed as discipline.
The Greek word used here for discipline is paideia and this is the definition: instruction that trains someone to reach full development (maturity).
Why does a parent task a child to do chores?
So they learn how to be responsible and mature into a person who will someday run their own household.
It may feel hard and annoying to the child, but it is growing them towards a productive end, nonetheless.
Remember how I said earlier that even when the enemy may be doing something TO us, God is doing something IN us?
God was USING what the enemy meant for evil as something GOOD for me- to train me to endure and to fortify my faith. To mature me.
Discipline is how we grow into better things, whether that be in our financial choices, exercise routines, or prayer lives.
Discipline is not always about correction, it can simply be about growing into maturity.
And just like a child doing laborious chores, discipline is not pleasant to us.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11
This is the often-times frustrating aspect of growing in maturity.
It is painful.
Those were the exact words I kept lamenting to the Lord in this season: this is so painful. My heart hurts. My brain hurts. My soul hurts!
But then there was that pesky verse that kept coming up…. James tells us to count it all JOY when we get the opportunity to grow in this way!
Joy? In trials? How offendable to our flesh!
And yet, this is where God wants our hearts to be positioned in these glorious opportunities.
Did you catch that word I so specifically used?
Opportunities.
That is what they are.
This is how the roots go deep.
This is how the battle is won.
This is how the anchor stays firm in the waves.
This is how we grow in maturity.
This is how our faith becomes firmer and firmer over time.
We need the Holy Spirit to renew and transform our thoughts and perceptions around trials and the pain they bring to our lives.
As born-again believers, we have the mind of Christ as our inheritance, but sometimes we would rather stay in our old mindsets.
Why?
Because it feels gratifying to the flesh to sulk and be miserable in the midst of trials.
It feels even better to pity ourselves.
There is a difference between walking through hardship with pity and walking through it with self-compassion.
Pity keeps you stuck and will begin to yoke you to your problems. Self-compassion will allow you to walk through pain with grace and still see things rightly.
But ultimately, I hear the Lord calling you, dear reader, to change your view, your lens, and your idea about what trial means.
To the world it simply means empty pain, difficulty, and something to be avoided at all costs.
To the follower of Jesus, it means pain that produces.
Pain that produces joy to overcome, the ability to grow stronger, and to become shaped into a man or woman of greater faith.
That maturing and wisdom and perspective is like gold, and the more we grow in it, the richer we become.
Oh, let us see how you see God!
Let us become more attuned to your ways.
Let us notice every opportunity for refinement and give our surrender with ease.
Let us wrestle it out with no shame or self-deprecation but with an open heart and honest hands.
Let us become more like you.
Persevering through persecution.
Persevering through betrayal.
Persevering through emotional and physical pain.
Persevering when our natural sight does not line up with our supernatural sight.
Persevering in picking up our cross.
Persevering in patience, in gratitude, in expectancy for what is to come.
Because completeness and maturity- lacking nothing; that is what we all desire.
To lack nothing in you.
Help us be fortified and strengthened in every way.
We cannot do it without you.
The enemy thought he could discourage me, break me, and deaden my destiny, but God has the final say over my faith.
The most pertinent aspect of faith that we must never, ever lose sight of, is that it is Jesus who empowers us to continue in our faith.
It is not in our own strength.
When you find yourself in the thick of it, questions abounding, pain over-flowing, brooding spirits surrounding your every move, remember this:
He is able to keep you from stumbling.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Jude 1:24-25
I am here, standing stronger in my faith, basking in the awe of God’s glory to deliver me, sustain me, and shape me in the midst of it all.
Let this be your reality too.