trauma

Arm Yourselves: don’t worry, do prepare

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“Now who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it…So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude He had, and be ready to suffer, too…”

-1 Peter 3:13-15, 4:1

Be ready to suffer?

“Be ready. Get ready. Here it comes. Are you finally breathing easy? Don’t trust it. More suffering is just around the corner.”

This is the direction my anxiety took things.

After Benaiah was hospitalized and Cody was bitten by a snake in July. It felt like…there’s no such thing as a fresh start. No matter where you go. No matter how you try. You will never find safe. Danger will always be lurking, just out of sight, and the second you let down your guard – it will hurt you, or it will hurt someone you love. Be it a copperhead, a decline in neuro status, a car accident, or another tumor, something awful is always coming. 

To those who are recognizing it. Yes, that is PTSD. Yes, that is getting addressed. But I’m letting you in on some of my heart’s distress, because I spent this summer going quiet publicly, so I could get in the quiet with Jesus and plead with Him to give me some sense of what He was doing with our lives, and to restore my sense of His safety and protection. And now, I’m ready to bring you along into what He’s teaching me, and what I am still learning. 

In response to a lot of things these last few months, I felt my heart drop to my stomach, like the floor was falling out from underneath me. A loud sound when we’re driving. A new group of lumps along the scar of my incision. Another hospital bill. The tornado warning on my phone telling us to get out of our trailer and move to more substantial structure immediately. 

I listened to a video of a surgeon from Mayo Clinic, working to reassure patients who had gotten my type of tumor removed and were wrestling with the stress of potential recurrence. He said something like: “I do understand it’s heavy to carry that possibility – with the need to keep coming for scans, because we can’t tell you for sure that it’s over. But as your doctor, I would share with you that it’s very damaging to your soul to be waiting for that other shoe to drop, and I don’t want you to miss your tumor-free years. Those years are a gift.”

He was walking well in the tension of “Yeah, we might have to deal with that again,” and “There’s a lot of good right now you’ll miss if you’re focusing on it.” And I wanted to learn that. 

Darn it, as far as I know, I am living a tumor-free year right now, and I don’t want to miss one day of it! For that matter, I am living a brain surgery, snake-bite, car accident, tornado-free day today, too. Even as we carry the ache of what we’ve survived, the day we are living right now is a gift. But it is a learned skill to see that again after suffering that has rocked your expectations and rubbed away the young and innocent way you used to see the world. 

And so I have been wrestling.

“Lord, You say to expect suffering.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
-John 16:33

“You tell me I may have peace. In the same breath, you tell me I will have trouble. How do I absorb the reality that there will be more. More and maybe even worse than what we’ve already walked through. How do I expect that and still not lose heart?”

“Just don’t think about it,” doesn’t work for me. I’m a thinker (and “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself,” is not actually saying “don’t think about it.” It’s saying “do not worry about it”).

The message God weaves throughout His word regarding the dangers we face is not just “don’t prepare.” I am learning to accept that God crafted me as a contingency, rescue-minded person who plans and prepares. A preparer and a responder, which is part of bearing His image as THE Preparer, and THE Responder. Scripturally, there’s a way to live out my design that is in line with truth, and it doesn’t look like worry, or waiting for the other shoe to drop. But that preparation, harnessed by the Holy Spirit, probably does looks like anticipating goodness and accepting there will be hard stuff. It will be both. 

“So how do I tell my nervous system it’s safe? What layer of your protection do I need to understand to settle in the here and now? How do I accept what I’ve walked through, and lean forward in wild, courageous trust? How do I get back to that Jonathan, David, Joshua, Caleb spirit of, “This may get hairy, but my God will be with me!”?

“Arm yourself,” kept coming up as I prayed about it, tossing up these questions when I wrestled with anxiety again.

I found the verse it came from in 1 Peter 4:1, “So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude He had, and be ready to suffer, too...”

“Arm yourselves with this same mind.”
Okay,  the same mind of Christ. The attitude He had. That’s what I arm myself with. Set like a flint to Jerusalem.

“Be ready to suffer.”
Be ready for the bad. Prepare for the pain.  Forgive the movie quote, but it brought to mind a scene from my favorite move, The Princess Bride. I used to think I was. Ready to suffer, like Westley in the Pit of Despair, bravely raising an eyebrow,

“So it’s to be torture then? Pff. I can cope with torture.”

The albino man sighed as he continued dabbing Westley’s wounds,

“Well, you survived the fire swamp, you must be very brave. But no one withstands the machine.”

Now I feel like the broken Westley in his second interview, just whimpering.

How The Princess Bride Shows Philosophy is Inescapable | by Carl T. Rogers, MFA | Storylosopher ✍️ | The Labyrinth | Medium

Princess Bride -- The Machine on Make a GIF

Prepare for pain? I’ve been through a lot of that, so I can prepare for more, but I don’t know how to not be worried, then.

“How do you say to someone “This is going to hurt,” and “don’t worry” at the same time, Lord? How can you ask me not to worry when you say stuff like that?”

I asked people. Wise people. Counselor people. How do I do this? 
“You have a lot of trauma,” they said.

“Doesn’t everybody?” I thought.


When I asked, “Well, moving forward, do I tell myself it’s over? That it’s not going to happen again?” No one could set my mind at ease. They can’t tell me it’s not going to happen again. Some of it is unlikely. Some of it is actually sort of likely. But I was asking people. So they couldn’t tell me what was going to happen next. I was trying so hard to manage my own heart and mind. But I needed the Lord to manage my heart and mind. 

What helped was a question one of them asked: “Where are you trying so hard to be like Christ, instead of asking Him to illuminate your limitations and to show you what you need from Him?”

So finally, at 3 am, during an early morning breathing treatment for an asthma exacerbation ramped up by bronchitis, I asked Him, “I can’t seem to get a handle on how to help my heart and mind through this. Will you help me manage them? Will you show me what I need to know?” I pulled out 1 Peter, the book that housed this “be ready to suffer” statement and asked, “Will you show me what you mean? Does “arm yourself and be ready to suffer” somehow mean more than “get ready for this to hurt?” 

I’ve been chewing on what I read, and what I noticed ever since.

“So don’t worry or be afraid…”
-1 Peter 3:14

Arm yourself and be ready to suffer, does not mean we should worry or be afraid. The paradox again. Be ready for hard, but don’t worry about it.

“Ok, Lord, you’re being pretty direct about the worry issue, so show me: How do I be ready to suffer without being worried?”

And then my attention slowed and rested on the word “arm”  in “Arm yourselves.”
In the Greek, it’s “hoplisasthe,” which means, “to equip with weapons.”

Here are the thoughts that surfaced:

“Worry” tries to get ready.
“Arm yourself” succeeds.
Worry braces itself and freezes, saying “Oh no, not again!”
“Arm yourself” accepts that battle will happen again and takes action that makes a difference.
Worry looks for ways to avoid a fight.
“Arm yourself” is preparing to win the fight. 
Worry is a pulling apart.
Arming is a pulling together.
Worry hopes that with enough information, it can dodge the blows.
Armor is something you put on to shield yourself from the impact of the blows.
Worry is characterized by dread.
“Arm yourself” is characterized by hope.

“…Be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.”

-1 Peter 4:1-2

Does that mean once we’ve suffered, we never sin again? No, that’s not what it’s getting at. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Scripture lays out that, through the cross, for those who believe in Jesus, our sin is completely paid for (Hebrews 10:10), and we will walk out this life on Earth, battling and wrestling in a sanctifying, internal war between the Spirit and our flesh/sin nature (Romans 7:14-8:1), until the day we see Jesus face to face, and He makes all things new. We can have victory, but we will not be perfect.

It doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again, but I do think this verse is saying that as we suffer, our assessment of sin’s payoff changes. “Hamartia,” the word used for sin in Scripture, means “missing the mark.” It also means “loss.” And the word “done with,” in the phrase “done with sin,” means not only “stop,” but also “refrain” or “restraint.” Suffering develops our restraint. Suffering exposes our deep needs and changes our tolerance for missing the mark and empty chasing. Suffering saps our energy for broken cisterns that do not satisfy. (Jeremiah 2:13).

MacLaren’s Expositions says it this way: “Clearly, the words which follow it forbid its being taken to mean that dead men do not sin. The Apostle’s thought seems to be that such suffering in daily life after Christ’s pattern, and by His help, is at once a sign that the sufferer has shaken off the dominion of sin, and is a means of further emancipating him from it.”

Notice how 1 Peter 3 and 4 carry us from “Don’t be anxious. Don’t be afraid of their threats” to “you will be anxious to do the will of God.” In Greek, the word anxious isn’t there the second time. It literally says, “Not to the desires of men, but to the will of God, to live the remaining time in flesh.”

This is how I would put it in my words: Arm yourselves with Christ’s attitude and be ready to suffer, because it will develop in you a restraint flowing from both the immense power source that is Christ, the One who suffered, and the forming of a deep unwillingness to waste what’s left of your time chasing desires that miss the mark. You will want to use what’s left going after what God desires. Get ready for the difficulty, because you will know, through this, that He is where it’s at. It will train you to use what’s left well.

“…Even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.”

-1 Peter 3:14-15

“So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats,”

Here I noticed the layer of intimidation and empty threats. Scripture acknowledges that we have an enemy with schemes and scare tactics who aims to intimidate us away from battle with fear. But we have a Savior with substance and real strength. True power is not afraid of a fight.

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.”

It’s not, “Trust me because nothing bad is going to happen, so you don’t have to think about it or do anything about it.” God doesn’t tell us not to prepare. He just offers better preparation. He tells us to prepare by worship.

I’m saying it again because my heart needed it more than once and maybe yours does, too. Consider taking a moment to sit with this:

Our flesh and the Spirit both invite us to prepare, but
The flesh’s version of preparation is worry.
The Spirit’s version of preparation is worship.

My goodness, do I love it when the Bible tells me what to do instead. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid, 

Instead, worship Christ.

In this verse, the word “worship” or in some translations “sanctify,” means: to venerate, regard as sacred, acknowledge, mark as holy, revere internally.

The phrase could be translated, “As Lord sanctify Christ in your hearts.” It’s worship, and it’s even more than worship. It describes looking at Jesus in a way that hallows Him in our hearts as the One worthy to run things. “Sanctify” is “set this apart as special.” “Sanctify as Lord,” I think is a little closer to “bend the knee, my friend.” In your internal world, surrender to His authority over your life and His care for you. It’s the kind of worship where we humble ourselves before Him and finally let go of the fight for control that belongs to Him. 

Maybe you’re suffering, and you can’t find a thing you did to cause it. It just feels senseless. If so, trust that God will reward you. Don’t be afraid of the threat of even more. Mark out Christ in your heart as the Lord – the One who loves you and holds all things together (Colossians 1:17). Worship Him. And put on the armor and protection of His attitude.

What was His attitude? Great question. That’s another whole Bible Study. If that phrase tugs at you, I encourage you to go explore it, both in the rest of 1 Peter and in Philippians 2.

For today, I’ll just tell you that if you’ve walked through pain, and now you find yourself growing tight inside when you look ahead, I get it. 

At 3:30 am, I sat in the stillness with this passage in 1 Peter. And as the nebulizer choked out the last of its chest tightness-relieving mist, not only did my breathing come easier, my tired heart rested.

Are you tired?

Do you need rest?

After wrestling with how to absorb our story, how to look forward with trust, how to get a sense of “I am safe,” how to not lose heart and how to keep going, while holding the complex reality that we walk in a broken world, we’re in battle, and the race is far from over; I cried out to Jesus to come manage my heart and mind, because I couldn’t.

 “I, even I, am the Lord,
    and apart from me there is no savior.”
-Isaiah 43:11

I don’t know what’s coming, and neither does anyone else, but He does. Both He and the people who are His hands and feet of healing are binding my wounds, tending to what I’ve walked through, but He, and only He, can prepare me for what’s still to come. 

And it starts with worship.

“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

-Hebrews 12:3

When I feel the tug to worry, I will worship instead. I will dwell on Christ, sufficient for every storm; compassionate toward every weakness; broken for my heartache; who cried til He bled over the difficulty of what He was asked to walk out, but never lost heart; who knew deep weariness, and still renewed His strength and took courage. Christ, who armed Himself for battle. His victory in that battle changed everything. And then He gave it to us.

Are you tired?

I see you. Me, too. But let’s not let that weariness lead to a worry that pulls us apart inside.

Arm yourselves.

And then rest in your protection.

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.
 O death, where is your victory?
 O death, where is your sting?”

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

-1 Corinthians 15:54-58


Oh Lord,


I invite your Spirit into my wounded and fearful places. Please, where I worry, give me courage. Where I want to prepare, help me do it your way. By worshipping. By remembering what I’m fighting for. By putting on the armor that protects me from the blows of the fight. By being ready to suffer, but also expecting to win. 

And please, in this moment, meet my brothers and sisters who are hurting, disoriented, discouraged, anxious, and hopeless. Meet them right here, in this moment, right where they are, and whisper hope to their spirits. Gently lead them to fix their eyes on you, and then to be ready. Not because something bad is about to happen, but because this is the territory where you’re ready to fight for their freedom. Help us stand firm and refuse to be afraid of our enemy’s threats. Because you bring the power, and no one can contest it.

In Your Mighty Name, Yeshua, “God saves,”
Amen

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
-Romans 8:31

“Even from eternity, I am He, and none can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”
-Isaiah 43:13

“I have set the Lord continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
-Psalm 16:8

“A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.”
-Ephesians 6:10-11

“They do not fear bad news. They confidently trust the Lord to care for them. They are confident and fearless and can face their foes triumphantly.“

-Psalm 112:7-8

Outward Checkmarks, Inner Rest

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“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.  But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”

–Matthew 7:13-14

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Our pastor, Ethan Crowder, taught through Matthew 7 several weeks ago and it floored me. (you can listen to the sermon here.)

It wasn’t new information, but he put it in a new light. He reminded us that when Jesus mentions the “many” who choose the broad road, He wasn’t primarily referring to the many people who live horrible, sin-filled, evil lives. He was talking about the vast number of people who are working so hard to live outwardly good lives, but do not have true, inward righteousness.

Few trust in Christ. And He is the only way to be inwardly clean.

Few understand that God is not interested in all the outward effort and appearances and trying to keep up and trying to be good enough. He wants fruit that flows from the inner life, from a heart that knows only Jesus was ever good enough. He’s looking for people who walk the difficult, narrow road of placing all their trust in Him, step after step after step.

“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

–1 Samuel 16:7

I already know that my best attempts at a good life are not enough. I know I need the cross. I grasp that without Christ, there’s a chasm between God and I that I could never reach across. What I find myself wrestling to grasp is that the cross not only bridged the chasm, it moved me to the other side of it. Out of death and striving and failure; into life, wholeness, and favor. I know it, but I forget it. And I get stressed all over again when I don’t think I’m doing a good enough job.

In his message, Ethan said, “It’s easy to look the part…but genuine righteousness is always inward before its outward. It’s always a matter of your heart before it’s a matter of your life…If we check all the boxes with how we live but fail to have a heart that’s changed by the Gospel, then we’ve missed the point…God doesn’t want you to be Jesus. He wants you to TRUST Jesus.”

This wrecked me because, for a year, I have been trying so hard to keep up with what is expected outwardly while I’m grieving, churning, wrestling, and fearful on the inside. But I could have dropped all the outward things, the pressure to be enough and to be good for other people. Jesus is enough. I don’t have to be Him. I can just be the person who’s clinging to Him. What God wanted was inward. He had to do some work on the inward. And I couldn’t speed it up.

My trust and confidence were mangled and not functioning and I wanted to think rightly about God and have all the outward flow from being in a good place inwardly but I didn’t know how to get there any sooner. I wanted so badly to do well and to make good choices even if it took a while for the emotions to catch up, but the emotions also had to be processed. I think what stood out to me in this sermon was the relief of pressure: there is no pressure for me to be good enough. I cannot be. But Christ is – and He produces good in me as I keep coming to Him.

One of the most surprising things I felt this year was the urge to avoid church and fellowship and the attention. I couldn’t figure out why I wanted to get away from the very people who care so much for me and my family, but I think I understand now that it was the pressure. I perceived expectations that I couldn’t meet. To be their missionary and their small group leader and their helpful church volunteer and their mentor and their enthusiastic Vacation Bible School teacher when I was also a traumatized post-partum mom recovering from eight months of hyperemesis gravidarum, three hospitalizations, heart complications, moving suddenly across the Atlantic with only 5 suitcases worth of belongings, and facing the scariest days of her life as she waded through a flood of scans, appointments, and treatment recommendations for her tiny baby’s swollen brain.

I tried so stinking hard to have something to offer, but I think I could have just let it all fall. I could have just been exactly where I was, processing what I was dealing with, and if it was messy, I think they would have just loved me. Just like the Lord does.

And Oh, I need that love.

While I’m still trying to be enough, I will feel strain, distance and disappointment that don’t apply to me. I am on the other side of the chasm because of the cross. I have been showered with affection, approval, warmth and welcome because of the work Jesus finished. And it is not meeting the outward checkmarks that will finally ease that heavy pressure. It is resting in this unearned love – love that has been lavished upon and given whole-heartedly to me. Only out of that can I walk forward and have something to offer others. Something that is sincere and full of life, not forced and wrung out of a tired, collapsing shell.

Oh Lord,

May I find my rest in this love. May I learn to wait on you and let you produce the fruit. Help me to clear away the outward pressure and performance and let life make its way out – however small and humble its baby shoots are. Work the fruit of patience in my life, especially as I gauge what needs you are asking me to step into and what needs I should yield to your mighty hands, which can hold them all. Teach me to wait on the careful, inward work you are doing to produce true righteousness in my heart, especially when I’m tempted to rush it because I don’t see satisfying results yet.

Curb my perfectionism by killing my pride. Help me to drop those high, high expectations of myself and instead set all my expectation on you. Show me how to be at ease with learning, with interruption, with unfinished, with messy, with life as an imperfect disciple and a growing parent.

Remind my heart that it doesn’t please you to buckle down and strive with all my might outwardly while my heart is despairing. You are near the broken-hearted and you bind up their wounds (Psalm 34:18, 147:3). You lead gently those that have young (Isaiah 40:11). Good Shepherd, perhaps part of the difficult, narrow road is the difficult work of trusting you when I need to rest and recover, because I believe you when you say you are gentle.

“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him...”

–Colossians 2:7

“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

–Ephesians 3:16-19

Dwell in the “I Don’t Know”: how to tolerate unknowns with patience and great hope

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“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…”

–John 16:12-13

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I got a letter and a care package from a close friend about a month ago. You’ll laugh at me for this, but sometimes, when I get a really good letter, I highlight it and tape it to my wall. I actually wish I could do this in conversations, too, because every once in a while someone says something, and I know I’m going to need to sit with it. 

Here’s what I highlighted this time:

“I’ve always been the one to skip ahead a few chapters so I could resolve my internal tension. And yet God invites us to stay on the current page with all of its unresolved questions and tension.”

The same week, going through Jen Wilkin’s Bible Study on the book of Hebrews, I wrote down these points from her teaching as she encouraged her readers to take their time with the challenging portions of the text:

– Dwell in the “I don’t know.”
– Feel the difference between what you know and what you hope to know. 
– Slow down. Don’t rush the application. Confusion is part of the learning process.

I started sensing a theme.

In small group at church, the author of our study challenged us to “make big, giant, hairy plans”  because God is able to do more than we can even imagine. A year ago, I would have been right with him. I’ve seen the Lord provide above and beyond and carry us over obstacles in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. He is so worthy of our unwavering confidence and I want everyone I know to just GO for it, trusting Him with all their might, because nothing is too hard for Him.

But this year has been confusing for me! The pregnancy, the sickness, the exit, the baby’s brain, the delay, the camper crash, the transition…there are a lot of questions there that can put me in knots if I let them. Maybe you have some, too. I know our God is absolutely able to give us strength to carry out big plans. But I also know big plans can come crashing down and it turns out God was doing something else, at least for a time. It leaves me a little at a loss for how to prepare for what’s next.

If God’s going to accomplish whatever it is anyway, is there a way to plan responsibly, but skip the roller coaster of trying to guess what it is?

How do we work with all our hearts toward what He has in store for us – how do we invite it and invest in it and cooperate with it and expect it – without the whiplash and the heartbreak of getting yanked around the next unexpected corner?

We have to stop guessing what’s next and just do right now. We have to stay on the current page. We have to get comfortable in the tension. Because the relief that comes from filling in the answers early is a false peace, and it will keep letting us down.

“…Today’s trouble is enough for today.“
–Matthew 6:34

“Better to be patient than powerful, better to have self-control than to conquer a city.”
–Proverbs 16:32

Patient people don’t rush to resolve things. They’re not in a hurry when they’re working through something with other people, when they’re teaching, or when they’re learning.

“…We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”
–2 Corinthians 4:8

Patient people can tolerate confusion without losing hope.

Oh Lord,

This is not an easy thing to learn. I would rather teach Bible Studies and do missions work and mentor young people and make presentations and sing worship songs than let it all rest and learn what you have to teach me here. But my impatience will stain all that I do. It will hurt people. It will limit how far I can take people. It will limit how long I can last. In marriage, in parenting, in healthcare, language learning, potty training, grocery shopping, housework…you name it, I am in a rush. 

But when I abide in you, you produce the fruit of patience. 

“I have told you all this so you may have peace in me.”
–John 16:33

“I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
–John 14:27

The why’s and the what’s next…If you haven’t given me the answers – they are not what would have given me peace. I don’t need them and other people don’t need them either. Humble my heart to say “I don’t know and I’m content with that.” You have not chosen to reveal it yet. And you are withholding nothing good. (Psalm 84:11)

“For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works…”
–Hebrews 4:10

My work does not yet come out of rest. My heart is not yet quieted by your peace. I sit with the tension and I ache day in and day out as I move through my tasks, confronted over and over again with “I don’t know yet. I don’t get it. I’m frustrated. I see my impatience: glaring me in the face, springing to the surface, pleading for resolution.”

But the tension and the confusion serve a purpose. They are part of the learning process. They show up in the areas where God is about to produce growth. They are the highlighter that marks out where I am still striving.

“…Letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.” 
–Romans 8:6

Yielding, not striving, produces peace and life. The flesh demands answers, explanations, and an itinerary. The Spirit says “trust me.” And trust breeds patience.

“For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
–James 1:3-4

Lord, reassure me that when difficulty tests my trust, it’s training, not punishment; and I am building valuable endurance. Teach me to sit patiently in what I do not yet know, because you have given me a sufficient guide who WILL lead me into all truth. Remind me not to rush the application, but to step back and appreciate the gaps in my understanding as places where you can enter in.

“In Him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
–Colossians 2:3

So show me where I have a gap. Quiet my heart with your peace when I’m tempted to panic over what I do not know. Build in me a maturity and humility that tolerates the unknowns with patience and great hope. May I feel the tension and be able to wait, because I know you are producing growth. May I learn and learn and learn from you, my humble and gentle teacher.