Keep Moving
Keep Moving
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
It never ceases to amaze me how when God wants to get His point across or wants a message to be known, the different avenues He takes to do it. This morning before I left the house, I was listening to a sermon on the radio by Adrian Rogers. It was about depending on God through prayer. He stated the following, “Prayer is God’s way of causing us to be dependent on Him. Asking God for what we need ought to be as natural as breathing. Don’t get the idea you can only ask God for spiritual things, and you take care of the secular things. Everything is important to God. You may say, “Well, this is beyond God,” or “This is too small for God to deal with.” No! Can you think of anything too big or too small for God to notice? Ask Him for any desire of your heart.” His point was that we should be connecting with God and praying about everything. Nothing is to big or too small for God to handle. Ironically when I came home and went into the kitchen again, there was a Pastor giving a short talk and he also stated that there is nothing to big or to small for God to handle, we just need to pray. So, I wrote the following lesson on prayer to teach to our BTC class tonight. However, the confirmation on prayer doesn’t stop there. When we got to class and it was time for our worship song, my husband had played a song about prayer which he had chosen this morning but hadn’t informed me of. So the message for the day was prayer. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “Pray without ceasing” and we must do this. We must take every concern, worry, and problem to God in prayer and allow Him to handle it.
In recovery, one of the things that you need to pray for is patient endurance. Endurance is simply the ability or strength to continue or last despite fatigue, stress or other adverse conditions. Sometimes as you continue moving forward in your healing, there are times you can become weary. This can happen when problems arise in your life and they linger. Finances become tighter. Urges to return to your old lifestyle become stronger. Illness or death strikes loved ones. Current events in the world become overwhelming. When we lay down our weapon, which is the bible, and we stop praying, we can become easy targets for our adversary who wants to see us fail. He will do what he can to separate us from God who is our life line. God is the very one who gives us the strength to keep moving forward and He is the one who can answer our prayers. Once we lay down our bible and back off on praying, negative thoughts (fiery darts) will follow:
- God doesn’t care or He would have helped me by now
- This must be a problem I have to take care of
- I’ve been praying this long and nothing is happening. Why continue praying?
The enemy will always try and tempt us back to our old lifestyle through our problems, trials and stressful times. But when we continue praying and reading the Word, and trust in the promises of God which are in the bible, we will eventually see God’s help. We must not become weary in our walk and allow ourselves to be tempted back to our old ways. We must never give up hope in God’s help.. 1 Corinthians 10:13 states:
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
There will always be moments of temptation to go back to your old way of handling stress. But always remember who you have on your side to help you through those times. Keep your sword…the Bible…by your side and utilize it to defend yourself spiritually and to lift you up and strengthen you, continue praying and continue moving forward. Be patient. The storm will cease and out of it you will have patiently endured and received an increase in faith.