ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY- The Painful Process of Waiting
I love television programs that test a person’s endurance, mental and physical strength, and ability to persevere past obstacles. During this season, I have been watching a show that brought together people from different backgrounds, struggles, challenges, and dreams in hope of becoming the Titan, the best of the best physically and mentally.
As I watched the season finale, I loved that among the war heroes, lawyers, and other amazing athletes, two people won who most counted, “unlikely” in succeeding. A woman who was once homeless, called names due to her weight, and told by doctors that her heart condition would cause a life of limitations, rose to the best of the best and beat out every other woman before her. A truck driver, a prodigal son that spent time in jail and had a broken past, persevered with the focus of making his father, who was a pastor and his son proud. He wanted to be a hero to his son and show that his past would not determine his future.
I don’t know about you but there are times when the process of the struggles, the circumstances, disappointments with people, mistakes, and simply moving forward take a toll in my life and I say, “God, I am so done! It’s too hard to keep pushing forward, trusting You and waiting for your result and process in me. I feel crazy.”
Then, like the titans I viewed winning the show, He reminds me that something is happening that most, including myself, can’t see. In the process of the struggles, questions, misunderstandings, He is building a warrior. He is allowing situations to happen, not to punish or hurt, but to refine, make me stronger, turn my ears, heart, eyes, and mind to Him instead of what I see and feel.
The waiting process is not stagnant, it is active. It is a process where we cannot see the result or the bigger picture yet our Father is burning off fat, defining muscle, changing our habits in order for us to see through His perspective, not ours.
Be encouraged! The greater the struggle, the greater the use. A muscle does not get refined when it is relaxed and not being worked. It gets stronger and cut when it goes through the pain of going through it, “One more time”, and again, and again.
Perhaps, your time of struggle is simply your Father wanting you to lift that bar press up one more time so He can show you that you are capable of much more than you believe.
Take care
Charlotte
Dream Madly, Pursue Wildly, Trust Completely tm
Copyright © 2020 by Charlotte D. Hunt All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, or otherwise without written permission from the author except for brief quotations in printed reviews.