Finding Joy When #TheStruggleIsRealSample

  

Day 4: Desperate? Good! —The Unexpected Advantage of Anxiety

The way we remember yesterday profoundly shapes the choices we make today. 

When we get stressed, we tend to jump back to those same memories in our past. Left unchecked, we will let the interpretation of our past experiences direct our responses to future events.     

 In Genesis 3:1, the serpent challenged Eve with the question “Did God really say . . .?” He lures Eve into a dialogue in which he calls into question God’s intentions. Our enemy uses the same tactics with us. Once he gets us to doubt God and to doubt ourselves, he capitalizes on that deception to turn us against each other. 

Whatever moments in our lives have left an imprint on our souls are all opportunities for the darkness to try to take the pen out of our hands and write the story for us. The enemy is at work wherever he sees an opportunity to get us to believe a story that calls into doubt God’s true intentions for us.  But there is hope! Because the places in our stories that feel the most broken and unusable are the ones that give us the energy to seek Him in all honesty and desperation. 

When we are desperate, we seek God with a different kind of intensity and consistency. It’s an around-the-clock looking for Him. It’s seeking Him with all of our hearts and minds, morning, noon, and night. 

This kind of desperation is actually good, because it leads us to give up on our own version of the story and ask God to be the author of the story.

The wisdom from heaven is pure. It leads to the unadulterated, unashamed cry of our hearts to Jesus, asking Him to teach us how to reinterpret the equation that makes up our stories.

In order to trust God’s wisdom, we have to know God’s heart. In order to write a new story, we have to be willing to rewrite the old story. In order to interpret our today struggles, we have to understand the big Struggle that got us here in the first place. This is the way forward, but it takes the good kind of desperation, the moment when we give up on telling the story, when we stop listening to the party in our heads and turn our ears to the one Voice of Truth.

Conversation Starter: When was the last time you found yourself desperately seeking God? 

Getting Started: Have you ever resonated with any of the following whispers of doubt? 

Circle your answer below each statement:

1.  God doesn’t really need me for any big purpose—my life isn’t that important.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

2.  God is distant and doesn’t care about me.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

3.  God hasn’t fixed my struggle/hurt/trouble, so I must not be worth it.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

4.  God is punishing me because I haven’t been good enough.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

5.  I’ve been hurt in the past and God didn’t help, so I’m on my own.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

6.  Others have it a lot worse than I do, so my problems don’t need God’s attention.

• I’ve struggled with this in the past  
• I currently struggle with this 
• I have never struggled with this

Maybe you are recognizing for the first time that your struggles are much deeper than what you see on the surface. Grave problems require a glorious solution—and that is what we have in Christ! Pray specifically about those areas where you’ve recognized that you are harboring doubt about God’s intentions and your identity.

Verses:

Romans 8:35-39

Proverbs 3:5-8

Matthew 21:21