It has been quite a summer! These weeks usually fly by for our active family of five, but it feels like this summer break started six months ago. We had one trip planned for the summer–a long weekend in San Antonio to celebrate an anniversary, a birthday, and our son’s marching band performance. We ended up taking four trips, cancelling a fifth, plus sending our kids to camp for a week… and watching God provide for each eventuality that we did not expect!
Couple that with my 12-week internship for Biblical counseling (which ended tonight!), six weeks of life changes and meeting with an advisor for my own internal work, and the rest of our varied and colorful life… and it really has been a summer full of surprises.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but now I’m ready to transition back into another great school year. Pumpkin spice lattes and premature Christmas memes, here I come!
But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now [He has never ceased working], and I too am working.”
John 5:17 AMP
There are two thoughts I want to share this week as we head out of summer and back into fall routines… and they are both centered on the same truth: God IS moving. Rest assured, He never stops. Even when it seems like there is no hope to be had, God IS constantly speaking His Hope over every situation.
Yes, He did move back then when He helped us with that personal emergency or financial crisis we went through last year, or five years ago. He did move in the past.
And yes, He will always be with us, we will always be able to count on Him, and we will be with Him for eternity. He will move in the future.
But one thing we may miss… one thing we may forget… especially when circumstances threaten to drown us or derail the lives of our loved ones… especially when Hope is threatened and overwhelmed by fear… God IS moving NOW.
It’s easier to believe He’s a God who DID great things, because we were there. We witnessed it… and it gives us hope for the FUTURE that He WILL do great things again. However, and I believe this is part of the enemy’s plan to separate us from our current faith, it’s more difficult to see that God is already moving in our situation today.
- We ask for His help and we wait for it to come, but maybe we feel like He hasn’t started helping yet. We can’t see Him helping, so maybe He hasn’t started working on our behalf. We’ll just have to wait.
- We ask Him again, but we still can’t feel His presence, so I guess we’ll just have to keep waiting until He’s ready to start helping us.
- So we ask Him again… over and over we ask God to move until we eventually get frustrated with His perceived inaction and think about giving up.
Maybe it’s this strategy against today’s faith that separates some believers from God and from the church. Remembering what He did is powerful, and believing what He will do is excellent, but faith and hope for today are the glue that will hold us firm in the Lord to the end.
But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from His sanctuary; my cry to Him reached His ears.
Psalm 18:6 NLT
Here are the two thoughts I’d like to share:
One: He IS Already Fighting
The only reason I want to fight (in prayer) is because He is already fighting… and He is inviting me to join Him in the battle. (Psalm 44:3, Psalm 18:37-45) “He is the great helper of our prayers. He prompts, He enables, He empowers us to pray.” (John Piper, DesiringGod.org).
When circumstances rage all around and the voice of Hope is greatly challenged, God fights for us, in us, and through us by drawing us into prayer, bringing scriptures to mind, and empowering us to refute the enemy’s lies. When we desire to pray, we can know for sure that “God is working in [us], giving [us] the desire and the power to do what pleases Him” (Philippians 2:13).
When we are warring in prayer and pleading with God for help in the lives of our children and we just can’t see a way through… but then a glimmer of a thought enters to remind us that “We will see the goodness of God in the land of the living” when it comes to our circumstances (Psalm 27:13), that is the Spirit of God speaking His current fight over us to encourage and empower us to “stand firm in the faith” (1 Corinthians 16:13).
God is sovereign over all things, and He never stops working. He speaks His Word over us when we are in a battle, and we can rest assured that He was already in the room when the fighting broke out. When we finally begin to hear His voice and are pulled in to pray, it’s because He is inviting us to JOIN HIM in the fight.
Two: He is Actively and Currently Working
He is ACTIVELY and CURRENTLY accomplishing everything that concerns me. Believing these things about God has the ability to change the way we pray. Instead of feeling like we are begging an unmoving God for His help with a hopeless situation, we begin to see that He is already working behind the scenes, even as we speak. There is no situation that is hopeless when God is in control. Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to. Sometimes we or our loved ones have to take the long way to get to God’s peace and provision… I know I did. But even then, He takes care of everything on all sides of the situation, and then turns it around for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
“I thank You, God, that You are actively and currently working in my situation. You are always with me, You will never leave me or forsake me, You are with me even in this moment, giving me Your peace and wrapping me in Your love. I believe in You. I believe that I will see this situation turn around for the good of all involved, in Jesus’ name. I trust You, God.”
“I thank You, Father, that you are actively and currently protecting my children, even as I speak. I thank You that You are with them, You are speaking over them, You are holding them in the center of the palm of Your hand. I thank You that You are fighting on their behalf in this very moment because You love them more than I do. I trust You, God! I will not pray in fear, I will pray in FAITH, in Jesus’ name.”
Praying this way greatly increases our faith and gives us an internal knowing that everything is going to be okay because God is working on our behalf. It lifts our burdens and allows real Joy to come back in, even in the midst of the storm. This reminds me of an old quote you may have heard before… “We are not fighting FOR victory, we are fighting FROM victory.”
I pray the Lord increases our faith to rest and trust in His strength and tender care for us. I pray He opens our eyes to see that there are more with us than against us when the Lord is on our side. I thank God that He will accomplish everything that concerns us, and He will not abandon the works of His own hands, in Jesus’ name.
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:14 NIV
Broken & Sown 