We all face battles and struggles in our lives, but we have the choice to focus on them or focus on Jesus. We have the choice to let difficult situations mold us into looking more like Him or we can allow them to cause us to crumble and break. We have the choice to allow God to define who we are or the situation to define us. Life is full of difficulties, but we all have a choice of how those difficulties will affect us.

I am not saying the that the situations we face are not hard and painful, but what I am stressing is we have the choice of how we respond. We can run to the Father or run from Him. We can surrender to Him fully or get angry for things not looking like we thought they should or would look like. There are times we get a promise from God and we expect it to unfold in our timing. We forget that God’s timing is not our timing and that His ways are perfect. We have tunnel vision, but He sees every single detail. When He makes a plan nothing is overlooked and nothing is left out.

I was recently reading the story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 25. I caught something on this read through that I had never caught before. When they got married Isaac was 40 years old. When they had their son he was 60. That was 20 years of waiting for his prayers to be answered. It says that Rebekah could not have children so Isaac prayed. I wonder how often we pray for something, but then give up before we see the answer because it takes longer than we think it should. We may take waiting as an insult and as God neglecting us. If we allow this line of thinking to take up space in our thoughts we can easily become discouraged, hopeless, and angry at God.

I want to encourage you to run toward God. Don’t let your circumstances drive a wedge between you and Him. He is the only way, He is the only truth and He is the one that loves you more than anyone else ever could. We will never fully understand His plan, His timing, or His ways. His ways are higher than ours and His plans are higher than ours and there are times we must release the need to understand. I want to encourage you to not let something you don’t understand get in the way of your relationship with Him. Let’s choose to say, “God I don’t understand what’s going on but I trust You anyway.” Let Him use the situation to grow your faith, patience, and endurance. Walk out on the other side closer to Him and stronger in your faith than you have ever been.

Blessings,

Nichole Henson, Fullness of Joy Ministry