Through the Apostle Paul, God tells us in Ephesians 6:13(NIV), “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” When it comes to issues and morals that are important to us, most of us know what it means to stand our ground. We don’t budge and stand on principle alone, because there are some things on which a person simply cannot be flexible. In the town where I’m from, the telephone company would put these 40 feet thick, wooden poles about six feet deep in the ground. On long dirt roads, sometimes drivers wouldn’t see them or forget they were there. It was a fight that any vehicle would always lose, because the pole had absolutely no give, not even if it was hit by a car. The pole was unmovable, and it’s a pretty good visual for what it means to take a stand. When it comes to the promises of God’s Word, we must be unyielding, and we must also know this conviction will most certainly be tested.
Ephesians 6:13 tells us to put on all of God’s armor, every piece of it. To the best of our ability, many of us do this. We know from 2Corinthains 10:4 that the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. This is why when faced with tough situations, we put on our war-face. We get ready for battle through fasting and praying. I heard a wonderful woman of God testify last week about allocating specific times to both fast and pray. She said when she does this, “God shows up and shows out!” There’s nothing like engaging intimacy with Him through these spiritual practices and doing them with the confidence that He’s going to do something powerful because of our diligence.
We should always have an expectation that Heavenly Father will reward our diligence. He tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that He will do just that. He is a Rewarder of diligent effort. But what happens when we fast and pray, and we don’t witness the manifestation of blessings we’re accustomed to? What are we to do when we’ve dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s, and done everything else we know to do, and things don’t get any better?
There’s nothing like the disappointment of being the best soldier for the Lord you know to be, and it seems like everyone is getting blessed except you. This is heartbreak on a whole other level. We can half-way face it if a mere human-being betrays or disappoints us, but when you feel as though the Lord isn’t coming through for you, it’s beyond devastating. It’s a head-and-heart trip for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that you can’t understand what’s happening. You can think of a million and one reasons why the Lord should have prevented a problem or stunted the growth of a tribulation, but here you are, facing the very thing you spent so much energy trying to avoid, overcome, or on the flipside, accelerate.
Whenever we’re in a place when we feel we’ve done our best and things are not getting any better, there’s an undeniable truth at work. We must know when things like this happen, God is in the process of elevating us to a new place in our relationship with Him. This inevitably means a greater level of blessings AND responsibility. It can be challenging for us to see this because of everything on our plates, but rest assured this is the truth.
A few winkles in our walk are being ironed out. One may be arrogance. It is arrogant to think in any way, shape, form, or fashion that God would ever allow anything to slip through the cracks. It is arrogant to think that we are deserving of blessings, and God has somehow missed our rewards. He is a Righteous Judge and would not allow our diligence to go unrewarded. It is unequivocally impossible for Him to fail, and nothing slips by Him. Proverbs 16:18 tells us that pride and arrogance goes before destruction. Arrogance will break your stride and cause you to lose precious momentum on this Christian journey. It must be dealt with through repentance in the name of Jesus Christ.
1Corinthians 10:26(NKJV) says, “for “the earth is the LORD’s, and all its fullness.” Everything belongs to Him, and every one of us belong to Him as well. He’s our Owner, and He can do as He pleases. We have nothing to claim that the Lord did not loan us. He knows our expectations. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 6:8 that God knows what we need before we ask Him. Our Heavenly Father wants to make sure that our hearts are right before the promotion. He’s helping us to cultivate such deepness of heart that we’re not dependent on everything around us looking a certain way and being a certain way. Our dependency must be on God. Our desire must be for right relationship with Him above all other things, and we must be in pursuit of His holiness.
The benchmark Heavenly Father has for our stand on His Word can be likened to that 40 feet solid wood pole. It’s anchored deep in the ground, and this is symbolic of how our roots must be firmly planted in Christ. Tribulation and trouble will come. Sometimes our desires are not met in the timeframe we expect, but God is not slack. He sees everything and knows about factors we couldn’t possibly consider. We must trust Him unwaveringly. In spite of what we’re dealing with right now, He’s working everything out for our good, and until we see it manifest in our circumstances, we must be anchored in our faith in Him.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“You Did Your Best, It Didn’t Get Better” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.