Do you know the Holy Spirit?

Romans 8:6 (NIV)

The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace

 

 

For years I have had the mind of a sinful man. It permeates my being and I am saturated with it. Now that I know the truth there is quarrel between it and the sinful side of me. The arrows from the evil one once wounded me deeply. God has reveled to me three specific wounds which and I now have scripture to counter what was learned from those wounds. They are healed inside of me but the damage done is still being weeded out of who I am. 

Those wounds taught me how the world works and how I needed to respond to the world in order to keep me from being hurt again. My relational style had been built on lies. I was a sinful man with a sinful mind and was experiencing death. 

Not anymore though. Now that I have received the Holy Spirit I am in training. I am learning how to let my mind be controlled by the spirit. The battle is in fighting the old thought patterns that have developed and along with that battle there is the fight with the old habits that coincide with those thought patterns. 

When you accept Jesus as your lord and savior you receive the Holy Spirit. It does dwell inside of us now. Many of us though, still need to surrender to the idea that we have been chosen. 

You see, I struggled with believing that God chose to make me, to create me, to teach me and to show me His ways. He made me to love and beloved by him. What is absolutely humbling is truth that he also wants to father me. He chooses to work though the Holy Spirit, if I choose to live according to it.

How does one live life according to the spirit? Living according to the spirit means that I now should be drawn to pleasure by the things of the spirit and not the things of the world. It isn’t an easy process but God has already done the work for us. He is revealing himself to you though the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to have head knowledge of His truths but another to live there. What we really need is to put that truth to work in our lives, we have to practice living in the truth. 

Just like learning to walk when we were young. We couldn’t always walk; it was something that we needed to learn. We had to find our balance, and then we had to practice to build up our strength in our legs. We needed help, we needed someone to hold us up at first, and then we needed encouragement to not give up and to keep trying.

I have found that, even with things going well in my life, I still find myself down; experiencing sorrow and melancholy at times. When I lived according to the world I was so lost I didn't even know my own name. Those feelings were something I experienced everyday. I got comfortable with experiencing those feelings. It had become a habit. We seem to get stuck in our old way of thinking.....it happens right? Consider this quote from a friend of mine.

 "We are more comfortable in our uncomfortableness and more satisfied in our unsatisfactory state within ourselves—than we are enthralled and thankful and surrendered at His greatness and willingness to do just what He says He will do and be just Who He says He will be!"

That was me for sure. For me I can be down for a bit unaware of why I am down. When I do realize that I am down a conversation starts in my head...

I like to think that it is the Holy Spirit speaking life inside of me.

“HEY! Why are you down again? What is troubling you now?”

The Holy Spirit is challenging me to take my thoughts and hold them up to the truth. When I do the truth begins to sprout in my soul so I respond.

"Well....nothing is wrong....my life is good right now....there are no major stressors occurring."

And when I realize that I am again, believing in those lies, I am freed. Didn't Jesus tell us that we shall know the truth and it would set us free?!

In these times I am seeing that I am just so used to "something" being wrong it has become a habitual way of thinking or being. Sadness, melancholy....was just my accepted level of happiness. We all have the capability to accept a certain level of misery consider it happiness. This is as good as it is going to get. I was more comfortable there so it felt like home but that is not where I should be. 

My friends don’t buy into that. We were meant for so much more.

I say these things to prep this.

One of the best feelings that I have ever experienced is the realization that all is well with my soul. That God, in His glory, is fathering ME and I am OK. I am free of all that old stuff, that old way of thinking so I can just let go of my sadness and melancholy as it is nothing more than a lie from the evil one. When I turn my back on those old thought patterns I am choosing to live in the spirit. I am choosing to receive that truth from the Holy Spirit. It just washes over me like someone has dumped warm oil over my head and it just permeates my body (and soul) with its warmth.

I am convinced it is His love and I shiver......

In that moment I am recognizing the second part of Romans 8:6 …. the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace

I want that for you for I know first hand that God is faithful. He didn't give up on me and he won’t give up on you. He keeps pursuing us with His annoying love. It is always there, it has always been there, and will always be there.  There is nothing that we can do to separate ourselves from that love. Even in our own depravity and wretchedness He reaches down his hand every time we trip and fall. His patience is never ending; time and time again he fathers us like many parents do teaching their kids how to walk.

"Now ( insert your name here), come on, get up and try again, YOU can do it! I will teach you how to walk in my ways." AND in those times where I just couldn't do it anymore, He just carried me. Now I am walking on my own, more and more....nah, now I am learning to run...I still fall, but I get back up quicker than before. So can you!

The Holy Spirit is what guides us. The Holy Spirit is our encourager, and at times the one who reminds us that all is well and we need to simply get our thoughts focused on the reality of the truth of where we are now. We are IN him, we are with him and he is with us. We are a part of the vine.

 Let me leave you with this verse and a closing thought.

Romans 15:13 NIV

May the God of hope fill you with  all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Paul prays that God may FILL you with joy and peace in believing that he is faithful and by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. But you see, YOU have to choose what you get filled with. It is only God’s desire to fill you with these wonderful things though the choice is really yours. You can choose whatever you wish to be filled with but you only have two choices: 

1) What the world offers

or 

2) What God offers

You choose by what you surround yourself with. What are you choosing today?

Here is an old Cherokee Legend that was shared with me years ago. It is a good story that summarizes this week’s “Deep in the Week”.   

Relational choices

  
Something to know about me….In my job (and I guess in life as well), I am the 1^st line of an email reader. I get tons of work emails each day and the 1st thing that I tend to do is to prioritize the fire that is blazing the highest. It is just the world that I work in and am realizing that it has become the world that I have been living in. Get my attention in the 1^st 1 or 2 lines of the email or I move to the next “problem”. No time for information that doesn’t apply to the moment, no time for a thank you or for general information….Bad I know but I am just being honest. In some cases, it works but in many, I miss the point of the email because of my lack of follow through and desire to get to the issue at hand.

 As stated yesterday, it can be difficult to apply this wisdom and discernment that Proverbs seems to devote many chapters to, in situations where our desire can jump out and take the lead. In many cases, this desire may start out with “clean and good” intentions. My latest example involves a relationship in which I believed that I was on the path that our Heavenly Father wanted me to be on. It seemed clear and you know what….The truth is….I still believe that this relationship was not only allowed by God but was intended.

 We have this thing in life that is called free will. It is messy and causes all kinds of  issues but it is THE MAIN reason that we are all here. The most simple and true reason that we are here is to CHOOSE. Choices are made all of the time but there is one main choice of salvation that (after it is chosen), changes all other choices. After choosing salvation, all other choices fall into 2 different types: 1 type that grows a relationship with our heavenly father (while here on earth) or the 2^nd type which is one that is not relational and is self serving. For many Christians, we tend to look at our journey being over when we make that 1^st big decision to choose salvation…Maybe we’ve got it covered at that decision from an eternity standpoint. It is not my intention to argue for or against “once saved, always saved” in this observation. Mine is to focus on something else today. This is something that has been put on my heart a lot the past few years…Rewards of the relationship that I choose here on earth with my Father in Heaven. I DO think it is as simple as that. For me this takes constant effort. For me, a path that can start out based on thoughts that are relational with my Father in Heaven, can easily be twisted and contorted by the second type of thought. It can happen FAST and for now it can be extremely difficult for me to recognize.  

 I hear the following term used a lot by support groups or people that are recognizing that they are in the middle of a life storm….The term goes something like “one day at a time” or “living today for today”…something to the effect anyways. For me….when I am at my very best, I modify this. In most cases it can and should literally be changing the term “day” to “minute”. Our father wants us to choose him and I am finding that (from a relationship standpoint) it is a choice that must be made consciously, deliberately and often. He is perfect, he will always forgive and love us no matter what. He doesn’t give up on us for a day, or a minute, or a second even. However, we are not perfect. Any relationship, father to son or husband to wife or whatever, takes interaction and thought to truly be a good fruitful relationship.

 But there is another entity with a very different purpose and goal. He is a liar and Boys and Girls, he never gives up either. Not for a day or a minute or a second. He would love for a believer to live day by day. That gives him 23 hours and 59 minutes to occupy our minds as he pleases. With TV and Radio and Internet and Visually striking examples of the opposite sex walking down the street….these are the tools that are most tangible to identify yet we choose to ignore. We choose to believe that he isn’t that busy, that powerful and that we aren’t that important (that is what he tells us after all). It is part of the lie that he tangles and weaves and he is the master deception. Less tangible things are worry, anger, fear. He doesn’t need a venue like TV or news articles for that. It is our nature and he knows us all too well. He is very different than our Father. He exploits and utilizes every tool that he has. He isn’t the most powerful being in the universe. That is our God. However, he is ONE of the most powerful beings in the universe. He wants YOU! He wants to rob you from a precious eternity. Bad enough so you say….No, he wants to keep you from anything that has to do with a relationship with your Father during your time here on earth as well. He wants nothing more than to keep you from reaching your full potential here or anywhere. HE DOES NOT WANT YOUR LIGHT TO SHINE! It isn’t about love. It IS more likely about the old adage….misery LOVES company. It happens all of the time. A great reference/example of his deception is a short book called Screwtape Letters written by C.S. Lewis. A friend of mine, uses the term "spiritual warfare" in regards to this kind of thing and she takes it very seriously when and where she can identify it but it can be difficult to even be aware. He is that good at being bad.

 This time, for me it involved a relationship with a beautiful complex soul, a daughter of our most excellent Father. I stand firm in believing that it was his path to be part of this woman’s life and her part of mine but I (maybe, probably we) read the 1^st line of the spiritual email, made assumptions and decided to take it from there. We did involve God and we honored him and each other physically in our relationship. We did many things well and very few wrong. The relationship did impact my life positively and in some ways God’s objectives (I know) were met. In this case though, I think it was all about timing, patience (or lack there of), fear, and past hurt or lack of trust. Not so much between each other but in God himself. If I would have been more focused on him those things would have been intrusted to him. Instead, it ended up manifesting itself as negative feelings toward each other. If we both would have trusted him with our timing, patience, fear, trust and Past hurt, no telling what other kind of fruits God would have blessed us with. Not harping or crying over the past too much here. Just trying to learn where I can.

 Good news though….Our Father loves us and is the most powerful being in the universe and he has a wonderful habit of taking our screw ups and teaching us through discipline and love and allowing us to gain wisdom the hard way if that is what it takes. It isn’t because he doesn’t love us. It is just how we grow. It isn’t always pleasant in the moment and may not make sense until we gain wisdom (just like the Toddler picking shiny “bad for them” objects off of the floor)..... A pen is not a bad thing for an adult that has wisdom on using a pen, but a pen can be a dagger to the eye or choking hazard to a toddler, right? Good thing he gives us more "pens" when we have the wisdom and knowledge to make better use of such things.

Wisdom can be difficult to see during the process of learning

It can be so difficult to listen to things that you don’t want to hear sometimes. We are literally just like little toddlers some days aren’t we?.
Ex: a toddler sees a shiny object and is drawn to it. They see that it would fit in their hand, it may even taste good. It looks good, it looks GREAT! it is within reach…,they want this new thing more than anything else in the world. It becomes their immediate passion, their sole existence, their only purpose to obtain this object. Obsessive? Maybe....They waddle or crawl or scoot (whatever form of locomotion they have available) and grab for the object. The one right there in front of them. The one they see Mom or Dad or big brother or sister with just minutes earlier. It is the one just within reach. They get their little drool covered hand on it and the world is good. You can see the amazement on their little faces….Just as they do accomplish their mission, Mom or Dad swipes it out of their hand and (in a best case scenario) gives them a single cheerio or toy. In most cases they simply get a disciplined “NO” with little to no understanding made available to them in the moment, as there is none to really give a toddler. They would simply not understand or comprehend.

From their perspective, life is totally unfair and everything (I mean EVERYTHING) just blows up. Anger, frustration, hurt. In some cases, I remember seeing my son and daughter sink to the floor collapsing as if finished with ever trying to accomplish anything in life EVER again. An absolute explosion of emotion.

What is it that the parent sees that is so different from the toddler? The object of affection, the beautiful and shiny thing that must be had, the thing there for the taking? The Mother or Father sees a knife, a pen (a dagger to a toddlers grasp), a razor blade…..In the moment, it makes no difference to the toddler. They know not. The pain and hurt they have here in the moment, it pales in comparison to the true pain, hurt, disfigurement or maybe even death that would have ensued if not for the loving earthly guardian and his or her attentiveness.

What a true example of what happens to us in life as adults. How much different are we really, in his eyes?

Heavenly Father, I am sorry YHWH for pursuing the shiny objects that become my affection. It can be so easy to miss it but thank you for the wisdom and insight that you have given me in my own experience as an earthly father. Help me to find contentment in this example in my own pain today. I love you and thank you in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN!

Don't Stop Believing - Search for the mountain top

Let’s face it. Life by itself is just hard. The world just makes it that way. Life as a Christian, in this world, is even harder. 

There are so many competing priorities, responsibilities and so many opportunities to fail at getting it right. It is enough to drive, even the most “got it together” person crazy; let alone someone who is just barely hanging on trying to make it through today. Which, I reckon, if we are honest with ourselves, is just about the lot of us. 

See, lately I have been in the midst of these struggles, not my own either, seems most everyone I know is facing some sort of trial or challenge in their life. They are people that I love and care about and I hate seeing them struggle. Being limited in what I can do to help doesn’t make it any easier. At the end of the day all ya can do is pray sometimes. So that is what I do. Fervently.

They are not the only people who struggle though, we all do. No one escapes struggle.

  

As I was sharing this with a friend of mine, she agreed about being around those who also were suffering but she did make mention of seeing a mountain top off in the distance. Well, that comment has been just percolating and steeping in my mind all day today. Tonight, as I was driving home I was rocking out to some Journey and it hit me.

That is it. Journey had it so right “Don’t Stop Believing”. Just don’t stop.

You can do this don’t give up on it. You will survive this.

 

Sometimes, when we are in the valleys of our lives, we need to be reminded to look up every once and awhile.  We all seem to forget that it is just that. A valley, and off in the distance is a mountain peak. It can’t be a valley if there are not peaks right? Just look up and remember that it won’t always be like this. If that is where you are at tonight/today (or whenever it is that you have stumbled across this), then I want to suggest that what your believing in or hearing, is a LIE.

It will not always be like this!

Change is certain and inevitable. Furthermore, we can drive change! Granted, sometimes it’s a little slow and painful but it is change nonetheless.    

Dream.

Dream big.

We serve the most powerful being on the planet who wants you to seek the mountaintops. 

Do you know where God lives? Really, I mean do you realize that He is not on that mountaintop? 

Nope.

Psalm 34:18 says “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” NIV

Right now... He is close to you. He lives in the valley because that is where He is needed the most. That is where we are. He wont do it for us, we have to be positively believing that good things can and will happen. Don't stop believing!

Your struggle, your challenge, whatever you are facing right now will be better or worse by what you think about it. I was told for years that it was all in my head……and ya know what. One day I realized that was true. It was all in my head. At first I thought, "Great, I’m not playing with a full deck.......my hamster wheel is in there but the hamster has gone on break"!

Here is the truth that set me free. It was in MY head. MY head, which I have 100% control over. My thoughts are my own and I can CHOOSE to think whatever I want. It is all about my perspective of my current situation. There is so much power in what I think. That is MY power. Mine. Power mind you, not weakness, not helpless but POWER. So I decided I was done with being down. I was still in a valley but I didn’t have to walk through it with my head down. I decided to look up and I saw the mountain top. You my friend, have that same POWER.

  

Don’t forget to keep looking up! Don’t stop believing!

Take time and start listening to what it is your thinking. We all have what is referred to as “self talk”, the things that constantly run through our head.  What are you saying to yourself about your situation? Is it positive or negative?

Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he... KJV

We believe what we tell ourselves. When we believe it, we then feel it. When we feel it we begin acting in ways that support those thoughts. It affects our behavior. It is inevitable. You can’t change that truth but you can believe and understand its principles you can use it for good. More importantly, you can stop using it to hurt yourself. 

What you think becomes what you feel and what you feel becomes your behavior.

Thoughts---------> feelings-------->behavior 

Look at Proverbs 23:7 again. What I think in my heart I become.

You have a choice. Right here and right now. You can walk away from this devotional and forget about it and continue living as you are OR you can begin to monitor your-self talk…monitor what you think and start changing it. It takes practice but you can learn to do it. 

Paul tells us how in 2^nd Corinthians 10:5 NIV

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

 

Take captive EVERY thought. Webster defines captive as “taken and held as or as if a prisoner of war”. So you first think about what you’re thinking about; you grab it (write down if you have to) and then you compare that thought with TRUTH. Jesus says, in John 14:6 that HE IS THE TRUTH. So hold that thought up to the light of Christ, compare it to what God says about you. Is what your thinking the truth? I bet for a lot of you, if you’re like me, you just might find you have a bunch of bogus thoughts floating around in your head. 

It is time to clean house. 

When you find a bad thought or belief about yourself, you need to replace it with an opposite truth. Don't leave a void. Remove the bad, replace it with good. For example, for years, I felt that I was not worthy because of weakness. Therefore, when I would catch myself thinking something along those lines I quickly replaced it with this verse:

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

I replaced the tape that played in my head. See how it is specific and targeted directly against the lie that I was believing. I felt weak and not worthy. That wasn’t true. God made me with a spirit of POWER and self-discipline.It just takes practice and time. 

You can do this. 

Check out 2^nd Corinthians 10:3-7 from The Message. 

The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.   

God has given you tools to fight with; don’t stop believing. Look up.

I have one last truth to share with you. 

You are free from whatever chains have bound you. You are free. It has  power over you no more.

One of the lies that Satan wants to constantly reinforce is that you are still bound. He wants you to think you are still a prisoner. It works like this. 

You know how they say when someone loses a limb they still can feel it, not only can they still sense it is there but it hurts. They experience pain. Phantom limb syndrome exists in 60-80% of individuals who have lost any body part. This includes arms, legs, breasts, eyes, and even teeth.

Consider this as well. Divorcees still, on occasion reach out in the middle of the night for their spouse, years after they have left. Now, I don’t experience any phantom limb issues but I can attest to this one. It has happened to me a couple times. It is not always a conscious thing but I do it.

Take these two concepts about sensing something that is gone but we think it is there. Let’s talk about the truth of our freedom. Do we live in it or do we still sense the chains?

 

 In Galatians 5:1 NIV Paul reminds us:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

So were once prisoners. We were once judged, persecuted, and found guilty by Satan and He decided that we deserved to be bound. Not literally right, no one is walking around bound physically right. But spiritually where we can’t see it, we are. It manifests itself in our lives in all kinds of ways. He has attacked our hearts.

Depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, lack of self-confidence, obesity, health issues, mental issues, addiction and etc… These are all things that bind us and keep us from living in our freedom. As Paul would put it, these are the things that burden us in a yoke of slavery.  

I firmly believe that Christ’s death and resurrection was a battle against the dark forces that rule this world, those same forces that chained our hearts. What Christ did was take the keys of the chains that bind us and use them to unlock the locks on our chains. But many of us suffer from symptoms like that of Phantom limb syndrome, we suffer from phantom chain syndrome. We still feel trapped and bound by our thoughts. 

I’m excited to remind of the truth. You are FREE! You no longer are a captive.

Raise up child of God and let the chains of whatever it is that holds you fall down to your ankles and then step out of them. It all starts with your thoughts. This is the first TRUTH you can fall back on. You are free because of what Christ did on the cross.

 

1 John 4:1-6 NIV

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

I know I have covered a lot here but this is so important for you to understand. These are the basic building blocks you need to overcome the things that grip you right now. You don’t have to stay where you are. You do have the power and capability to begin a new journey. 

Don’t stop believing, look up, and take control of your thoughts. You are no longer a slave bound by the judgments of this world. You are new creation, made in the glory of the image of God and you have been set free. Speak it aloud. I am free!

It is the desire of my heart that you find the freedom that is already yours. Let God start restoring your wounded, unbound heart today.

 

Hope - Isaiah 40:28-31

28Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

29He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

I love how this verse starts off…… hey man, didn’t you hear? You mean you don’t know? Whoa, let me tell you about our God. He is everlasting, yeah, that’s right; the energizer bunny doesn’t have anything on our God. He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t get weary. He is God and “God’s got this”. 

Make no mistake; those are physical attributes associated with our human condition. He is not human, he doesn’t get tired or weary. He doesn’t need to take a break and catch his breath. He doesn’t need a moment of silence in order to wrap his head around what we just did. No one can fathom his understanding.

He is our Lord and He is well equipped to take care of us. 

It brings me comfort to know that God doesn’t get weary of my mistakes or my feeble attempts to live within His will. I fail time and time again at “being good”. It is a good thing that the ability to “be good” isn’t one of the boxes that needs a check mark next to it on the admittance to heaven application.  

I do get weary, I do get weak. I’m there right now as a matter of a fact. Having spent the last week recovering from minor throat surgery I find myself weary of the pain that each swallow brings. It is a pain that just doesn’t want to go away and is worse each morning. Yeah, I have some pain medication that dulls the pain but wow. I was not prepared for this at all. I am not myself anymore, no, not until I can eat, speak and drink as I used to. I’m tired and probably dehydrated. My mind is weary.  

I’m not alone this week either, my best friend is working his way through some issues right now too. Yeah, he has been suffering to say the least. We all have been there right? At the bottom, at the end, with nowhere to go. So we just want to quit. We want to walk away from our life, even if only for a moment. I am so proud of him. He just doesn’t want to fake it anymore and is looking to make a stand and make some much needed changes in his life.   

Another new friend is surrounded by death. This past week she found out that her dog has terminal lung cancer. There is no money right now for treatment. Her cat, who has lived to an amazing 17 years has stopped eating and is also close to the end of her days. Her car is also in the shop. She isn’t even driving her own vehicle right now. She has a loner. Yet, she still hopeful. She knows God is with her. She knows that her hope is set in something solid.

This is enough to drag anyone down right? Geesh, life can be so hard and so unforgiving. Here is the thing though, if you asked any of us if we had any hope left at all you would hear a resounding YES! 

We are down but yet we walk with a quiet confident hope that God is working in all these issues.  

Even though our lives have been flipped upside down at this time and we are unsure what will come next we all share one thing. We all have HOPE. 

Not just a general hope either. We don’t sigh and think….well…….maybe……things will work out for the best. We do not resign ourselves to some glib idea that just maybe, if the stars align, things will get better. 

No way, we have a confident hope that our God is working out all things to our benefit. ALL THINGS. Even our mistakes. It is true. 

The rest of today’s passage covers that right? Read it again.  

29He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

There it is, did you see it? Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

We all get weary from doing life. We all make mistakes and we all fall short of “being good”. If we let it, if we let him, Satan will accuse us and persecute us in these areas. Make a stand. Don’t believe his lies. 

You are a child of God and as such, you have direct access to the source…..

Access to the strength to get by……..

Access to the ability to get up again…….

Access to walk and not be faint……..

Access to run and not be weary…….

Friend, I know your life just doesn’t make sense sometimes. I get it. I am here, as I said, facing today I am a bit lost and a definitely a bit weary. I am tired of hurting and am tired of watching those around me hurt and struggle. But here is the thing.   

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else with anyone else. This passage is so so true friends. We must maintain our hope. It is essential for us. To live without hope is to not live at all. We do have so much to live for, even in our misery, even in our valleys, even when the odds seem to be stacked against us. We are all capable of having hope. 

Put your hope in the Lord. It will be a sustaining hope.