Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (30 page)

A
n important part of never giving up is making right choices while you are hurting, discouraged, frustrated, confused, or under pressure. The right choice is often the harder choice. And when we’re in the middle of terrible stress, we naturally want to take the path of least resistance. But those are exactly the moments when you need to discipline yourself to make the tougher choice. In order to reap “right” results in life, you have to do right when you do not feel like it. I call this “pressing in and pressing on,” and knowing how to do it is one of the most important components of becoming a person who never gives up.

You will never get where you want to be in life without being willing to sacrifice and push through the obstacles and adversities that stand in your way. Your obstacle may be an attitude, a set of circumstances, a relationship, an issue from your past, a thought or mind-set, a feeling, or a bad habit. Whatever it is, you are the only one who can press through it; no one else can do your pressing for you. You may have tried to overcome your challenges in the past. Perhaps you have tried to the point that you are weary, exhausted, or discouraged. This is precisely
the point where you have to summon fresh strength from God and press in one more time.

One of the definitions I like for the word
press
is: “to exert steady force or pressure against something.” I often say,
“You have to press against the pressure that’s pressing against you!”
When something is pressing against you, you must be determined to press against it with greater force, because very little that is truly worthwhile or worth having in life happens without this kind of effort.

W
e should look to the future, determine what we want to see happen, and then discipline ourselves in order that we may have it. We must not buy into the lie that we should only live for the moment or that the present is all we have. We also have a future to consider, and we need to begin to live with an eye toward “afterward,” toward the “later on” times. We have to begin to care just as much or more about later on than we care about right now.

If you want to be thinner when the time comes to wear your swimsuit in June, you need to start eating healthily and exercising before summer arrives. If you want to be able to afford a new car next year, you need to work toward getting out of debt right now. If you dream of living in a nice, clean, orderly home, you have to clear out the clutter and clean it up!

Discipline may not be pleasant for your flesh while you’re doing it, but it will give you a tremendous sense of satisfaction in your soul—the satisfaction that comes from knowing you are making good choices. If you will pay the price to be disciplined now, you will enjoy rewards later. If you don’t pay the price now to do what is right, then you’ll suffer the consequences of an undisciplined life later. You can pay now or you can pay later, but at some point, we all reap the harvest of the choices we’ve made. We can’t simply wish our lives were different; we have to press through laziness, fleshly desires, and bad attitudes and refuse to give up on the discipline that will yield good fruit later on. If there is something you want to see happen in your future, start disciplining yourself toward it now, and later on you will enjoy the fruit of it.

Y
ou may know about Abram and Sarai and Lot, but you may not have ever heard much about this man named Terah. I believe Terah, Abram’s father, failed to take an opportunity God wanted him to take.

I believe God wanted Terah to go all the way to Canaan, the Promised Land, but look at the words in the Scripture: “but when they came to Haran,
they settled there
” (emphasis added). In other words, Terah stopped short. He was supposed to go from Ur all the way to Canaan, but he stopped when he reached Haran. Terah settled for much less than God had for him. Abram ended up receiving a phenomenal blessing, but I think God also offered it to his father. His father simply quit before he reached the place where he could receive it.

I urge you today to not settle for less than the best God has for you. Don’t allow yourself to get into a position where you wonder why someone else ends up with something, and then realize that you had the same opportunity and passed it up.

If we read on in Genesis 11, we learn that “Terah lived 205 years; and Terah died in Haran” (v. 32). He died where he settled. I think many people just settle somewhere and die in that place. They may not die physically, but their dream dies; their vision dies; their passion dies; their zeal dies. Their enthusiasm for life dies. Why? Because they gave up and did not press into the best God had for them.

You will face different types of pain and encounter difficulties as you go through life. You simply have to choose which kind of pain you want—the pain of pressing through or the pain of giving up. Only the pain of pressing through brings reward.

E
verything we undertake in life has a beginning and an end. Typically, we are excited at the beginning of an opportunity, a relationship, or a venture; we’re also happy when we can celebrate our achievement and have the satisfaction of a fulfilled desire. But between the beginning and the end, every situation or pursuit has a “middle”—and the middle is where we often face our greatest challenges, hurdles, roadblocks, obstacles, detours, and tests.

You may be in the middle of a lot of things right now. Perhaps you’re in the middle of getting out of debt. You have paid off all but one of your charge accounts and you’re starting to think,
I’ve done pretty well. I think I will go shopping today because I read about a huge sale at the mall
. It’s easy to feel this way but I want to encourage you—keep pressing all the way through! Don’t slow down when you’re starting to see real progress. Discipline yourself a little while longer; you will be so glad you did when you pay off that last charge account and you are completely out of debt.

Maybe debt isn’t what you are in the middle of. Maybe it is writing a term paper or training for a marathon. Maybe you are trying to adopt a child and are running into roadblock after roadblock. Or you are trying for a promotion at work. Whatever you find yourself in the middle of, determine to see it all the way through to the finish.

Between our beginnings and our endings, we must develop the boldness and determination necessary to overcome the overwhelming circumstances we encounter in the middle. The enemy wants us to settle for less than God’s best for our lives and to stop short of receiving and
enjoying everything God has for us. The devil hates progress and pushes us to give up. God, on the other hand, wants the very best for us; He wants us to finish the races set before us and finish them with joy (see Heb. 12:1–2). Ask yourself if you are willing to pay the price to finish.

A
person with the spirit of a conqueror must confront and deal with the adversities he or she will face, not run from them. We simply cannot keep trying to escape or avoid situations that are difficult. Anytime we run from a situation, we can almost be sure we will have to go back and face it, or something very similar, at a later time in our lives.

Think about Moses. He ran from Egypt and spent forty years in the desert, where God prepared him to be a great leader. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He basically said:
“Now I want you to go back to Egypt”
(see Exod. 3:2–10). Yes, God sent Moses right back to the place he tried to escape!

The Bible is full of similar stories—enough to convince me that running from adversity doesn’t do anyone any good. I used to have an extremely difficult time with people whose personalities were similar to my father’s. Because he abused me, I didn’t want to be around people who spoke the way he spoke, acted the way he acted, or reminded me of him in any way. But over a period of time I began to notice God was surrounding me with people who reminded me of my dad. Every time I encountered someone who reminded me of him, I felt insecure
and fearful, and I slipped into old behavior patterns. I didn’t like my responses, but I was asking God to change me and show me truth.

He put me in situations where I would have to deal with the fears from my past. He was trying to get me to grow up and be a stronger, more mature Christian. We often ask God to deliver us from the wrong things. We want to be delivered from our trials, but we need to ask Him to deliver us from the things in our hearts that hinder His purposes for our lives.

I
remember one Sunday years ago when my church’s pastor encouraged the congregation to take a moment to say hello to other people and even give them a hug and tell them we loved them. I looked down the row where I was sitting and saw a woman who had hurt me in a significant way. I strongly sensed the Spirit of God impressing me to give her a hug and let her know I loved her. Walking over to her and saying,
“I love you”
took everything I had! I can’t guarantee I was totally sincere, but I know I was obedient to God.

Several months later, God led me to give one of my favorite possessions to that woman.
“Now God,”
I responded,
“I don’t mind giving it away. I mean, I really would like to keep it, but if You are going to make me give it away, at least let me give it to someone I like so I can enjoy seeing her with it!”
God responded to me:
“Joyce, if you can give her that, if you can give your favorite possession to someone who really hurt you and is least deserving of it, you will break the power of the enemy. You will destroy his plan to destroy you
.”

We do not take steps of obedience and overcome difficult times because we feel like doing so or think obedience is a good idea. We do it because we love God, we know He loves us, we want to obey Him, and we know His ways are always best for us.

Whatever adversities you are facing right now or will face in the days to come, I urge you to confront them, embrace them, and deal with them. Face them like a conqueror. Remember, they are working for your good, and God will use them to strengthen you. Embrace them with a conqueror’s attitude, and you will find yourself in a place of greater maturity, wisdom, and ability than you have ever known.

I
n Nehemiah 4:4, we find three words that are vitally important to remember when we are trying to stand through a storm: “And Nehemiah prayed.” How did he respond to all the attacks that came against him—the laughing, the anger, the rage, the judgment, the criticism, being told his desired goal was impossible? He prayed!