WELCOME

Week two of endurance month starts here, in the middle stretch where the motivation from week one has worn off. This is where most people discover what they actually believe.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You used to feel something when you did the right thing, and now it just feels like another task on a list. You are wondering if the absence of feeling means you have lost your faith or your calling.

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Paul wrote to people doing repetitive, unglamorous work, and he told them exactly where to aim their effort.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Your motivation was never supposed to be the fuel. Who you are working for is the fuel.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-24, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Ministry work does not run on emotion either, and there are plenty of quiet mornings behind the scenes here that feel like nothing. Faith Partners keep this going through those mornings, not just the exciting ones.

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MAIN MENTORING

Paul is not writing to people with an inspiring assignment. He is writing to servants doing repetitive labor for masters who might not even notice the effort, let alone reward it. His answer is not to manufacture enthusiasm out of nothing. It is to redirect who you are actually working for in the first place. Heartily does not mean emotional. It means whole, undivided, given fully to the task regardless of what it feels like on a given Tuesday morning.

Nehemiah’s builders understood this under far worse conditions than most of us will ever face. Facing real threats and real exhaustion, the record says the people had a mind to work, in Nehemiah 4:6, ESV. Not a feeling to work. A mind, a decided will that did not consult their emotions first. They kept building the wall with a trowel in one hand and a weapon in the other, because the decision to keep going was settled long before the feeling ever showed up that particular day.

Your feelings will fluctuate all month, some days higher and some days flat. Your decision does not have to move with them.

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DAILY ACTION

Name one task you have been doing without feeling anything. Do it today specifically as an act of worship to God, and say so out loud before you start.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

Do not wait to feel it. Decide it, then let the feeling catch up whenever it wants to.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I confess the feeling has left and I have been treating that like a warning sign instead of a normal part of this season. Help me work heartily as for You, not for the applause or the emotion. Settle my will the way You settled Nehemiah’s builders. I am serving You, Lord Christ, whether I feel it today or not. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

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JOIN US

Tomorrow we talk about the faithfulness nobody sees. Subscribe so you catch it, and send today’s episode to someone going through the motions right now who needs to hear it still counts.

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BASED ON: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV)

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My child,

You have been measuring this week by how far you have come, and you keep coming up short in your own eyes. I do not measure you that way. I am not timing your race against anyone else’s, and I am not disappointed in the pace.

You think endurance means never slowing down. I built it into you so you could slow down and keep going anyway. There is no shame in the mile that hurt more than the others. I was there for that one too, closer than you knew, holding steady when you could not feel Me holding anything.

My mercy did not run out on Tuesday when you failed the thing you promised yourself you wouldn’t fail again. It did not run out this morning either. It is new again today, the way it has been every day since I first called you Mine, and it will be new again tomorrow whether you deserve a fresh start or not. That is not weakness in Me. That is who I am.

You keep asking if you are behind. Behind what, exactly. There is no schedule I handed you with a deadline stamped on it that you are now missing. There is only the next step, and the next one after that, and I am not rushing you toward either. I am walking at your pace, not the other way around.

Rest this Sunday. Not because you earned rest, but because I am offering it, the same way I have been offering it since the beginning. Tomorrow the week starts again and endurance will ask something of you once more. Today, just be near Me. That has always been enough.

I am not finished with you. I was never going to be finished with you over one hard week.

With everlasting faithfulness,Your Father

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JOIN US

Come back tomorrow as the teaching continues. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and if this letter was for you today, let it be for someone else too.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Day five, and here is a pattern worth knowing before you hit it. Most people who quit do not quit at the hardest moment. They quit right before the payoff, when it looks like nothing is different yet.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You have been faithful in something for a long time and you are tempted to stop right when it feels most pointless.

You have quit things before at the exact moment they were about to turn, and you didn’t know it at the time.

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Paul knew this pattern well enough to name it directly, and he gave a promise attached to pushing through it.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

The harvest is not canceled. It is due in due season, and due season is not today’s schedule.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

This ministry has had seasons that felt like the harvest would never come. Faith Partners are proof it did, and their support keeps the sowing going for the next person in a due season they cannot see the end of yet.

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MAIN MENTORING

Paul writes to a church that was tired of doing good with no visible return. He does not tell them the return isn’t coming. He tells them it is due in due season, which means there is a set time, decided by God, not by how discouraged you feel this week. Due season is not a metaphor for eventually. It is a promise with a timetable you are not shown in advance.

That is exactly why the giving up happens right before the reaping, not during the hardest stretch earlier on. The hardest stretch still has adrenaline in it. The stretch right before the harvest just has silence, and silence is what convinces people nothing is coming. James says something similar about the farmer: “the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it,” until it receives the early and the late rains (James 5:7, ESV). A farmer does not judge the harvest by how the field looks in the dry months. He knows the rain is coming because the season promises it, not because the dirt looks like anything yet.

You are closer to due season than you think. Do not quit in the quiet part.

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DAILY ACTION

Name the one thing you have been most tempted to walk away from lately. Write down one specific reason you believe it is still worth finishing, and read it out loud.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

The silence before the harvest is not a no. Keep sowing until due season arrives.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I am tired of doing good with nothing to show for it, and I have been tempted to walk away from something You told me to keep doing. Remind me that due season is real, even when I cannot see it yet. Give me the patience of a farmer who trusts the rain is coming. Keep me sowing until the harvest arrives. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

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JOIN US

Tomorrow we keep going. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and send this to someone standing right at the edge of quitting too soon.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Day four of endurance month and let’s name the thing nobody likes to say out loud. Waiting feels like nothing is happening. It rarely is nothing. It is usually the part of the process you cannot see, happening underneath the surface while you are watching the surface for movement.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You have been praying about the same thing for longer than you expected and the silence is starting to feel like a no.

You keep checking for movement and getting discouraged every time you don’t see any.

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Scripture treats waiting as active work, not wasted time, and there is a real difference between the two you need to hear today.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

The wait is not the delay of your breakthrough. It is part of how your breakthrough gets built.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“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, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Waiting seasons are expensive to sustain alone, and this ministry knows that firsthand. Faith Partners keep this here for the person still in the waiting room, with nothing to show for it yet but the wait itself.

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MAIN MENTORING

Look at the order in that verse closely. Renewed strength comes before the running and the walking, not after. Isaiah does not promise the wait ends fast. He promises something happens inside the wait that changes what you are capable of once it does end. Skip the wait and you skip the renewal, and you walk into the next season carrying the same depleted strength that got you tired in the first place.

David lived this out under real pressure, not a metaphor written from a distance. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (Psalm 40:1-2, ESV). Patient waiting came first in that sentence, and deliverance came second. David did not claw his own way out of the pit. He waited, and God did the pulling, in His own time, on His own terms.

Your wait is not proof that God forgot you. It is the pit becoming a rock under your feet, one day at a time, whether or not you can feel the ground shifting beneath you right now.

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DAILY ACTION

Name what you have been waiting on the longest. Thank God specifically for what He might be building in you during the wait, out loud, even before you see the answer show up.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

Do not rush what God is renewing in you. Let the wait finish the work it started.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I am tired of waiting and I have started to wonder if You forgot me. Forgive my impatience and my doubt. Teach me to wait the way David did, expecting You to draw me up in Your timing, not mine. Renew my strength while I wait, so that when the answer comes I am ready to run and not grow weary. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

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JOIN US

Tomorrow we go deeper into what breaks people in the middle of a long season. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and send this to someone stuck in a waiting room right now.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Two days into endurance month and here is a question worth asking honestly. When you picture yourself making it through this season, do you picture yourself gripping tight, or do you picture something gripping you? The answer changes everything about how tired you feel by Wednesday.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You feel like you are one bad week away from losing your grip on something God gave you to carry.

You measure your faith by how tightly you are holding on instead of by who is holding you.

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Scripture never asks you to have a grip strong enough to survive this life. It tells you whose hand you are actually in, and that changes the whole math.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Your grip was never the thing keeping you here. His was.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:28-29, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Endurance ministries do not run on their own grip either. Faith Partners are the hand underneath this one, keeping it free for the person who has nothing left to give today.

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MAIN MENTORING

Jesus does not say you will hold on. He says no one will snatch you out of His hand, and then He says the Father’s hand is around that hand too. Two grips, and neither one is yours. That is not permission to coast through this season. It is the reason you can keep walking instead of white-knuckling every step of September like your survival depends on your own strength.

Paul says the same thing from a different angle, and he says it as a settled conviction, not a hope. He is convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, in Romans 8:38-39, ESV. Notice what he lists. Not just the obvious threats you would expect. Everything you could name and everything you cannot. He is closing every door you might imagine losing your grip through, one by one, until there is nothing left to be afraid of.

You are tired because you have been trying to be your own security system for a long time now. Let the hand that is actually holding you do its job instead of doing it yourself.

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DAILY ACTION

Write down the specific fear that makes you think you could lose your grip on this season. Read John 10:28-29 out loud over that fear by name, more than once if you need to.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

Stop measuring your own strength. Start resting in the grip that has never once let go.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I have been carrying this like it depends on my grip alone, and I am tired from holding on so tight for so long. Thank You that Jesus says no one can snatch me from His hand, and You are greater than every threat I am afraid of. I rest in that today. Hold me when my grip fails, because Yours never will. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

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JOIN US

Tomorrow we keep walking. Subscribe so you catch it, and pass this along to someone whose knuckles are white right now.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Yesterday we talked about the race. Today, what you are actually running on. A lot of us try to power through hard seasons on sheer will, pushing through on determination alone because that is what we know how to do. It works for a while. Then one morning it doesn’t, and you cannot figure out why the same grit that used to carry you now leaves you flat by nine in the morning.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You have tried to white-knuckle a hard season and felt yourself running out of gas faster each time you tried.

You are wondering why the determination that used to carry you through anything isn’t working anymore.

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Willpower spends down. It is a tank, not a well. Faith works differently, because it does not draw from you at all.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Strength that comes from gritting your teeth runs out. Strength that comes from God does not.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.” (Isaiah 40:28-29, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Some days this ministry runs on fumes too, and it keeps going because people who have been helped step in to help others. Faith Partners are the reason this stays free for whoever needs it most, whenever they need it.

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MAIN MENTORING

Isaiah does not tell you to try harder. He tells you who God is, and that changes everything about how you fight. The Lord does not faint or grow weary. His understanding cannot be measured or exhausted. So when the passage says He gives power to the faint, that power is not a pep talk. It is not motivation borrowed from a good morning or a strong cup of coffee. It is strength transferred from a source entirely outside you, which is the only kind that does not run dry.

This is why willpower alone always fails somewhere in a long season. You are trying to run a marathon on a tank that was only ever built to empty. Paul understood this from the inside. He asked God three times to remove a weakness, and God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” so Paul chose to boast in his weaknesses instead of hiding them, because that is where the power of Christ actually rested on him.

Weakness is not disqualifying you from this season. It is exactly the condition His power shows up strongest in. Stop gritting your way through September like it depends on you alone. Ask Him instead, specifically and out loud, and watch what a transferred strength feels like compared to a manufactured one.

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DAILY ACTION

Name the one thing you have been trying to power through on willpower alone. Today, pray specifically and ask God for His strength in that exact area, out loud, calling it by name.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

Your tank was never meant to be full on its own strength. Stop gritting your teeth. Start asking for what you cannot manufacture.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I have been running on empty and calling it faith. Forgive me for trying to do in my own strength what only You can sustain in me. I am weak in this area, and I am asking You to be strong in it for me today. Give power to the faint. Increase strength where I have none left to give. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

JOIN US

Tomorrow we keep going. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and if this landed on you today, send it to someone who’s running on empty too.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

New month, new ground. All year we have been after wisdom, God’s master key to life. September turns that key toward endurance. The strength to still be on your feet in March holding what you picked up in September, after the excitement burned off.

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THIS IS FOR YOU IF…You are tired in something God clearly told you to do, and you are starting to wonder if you heard Him wrong.

You have quit things before that you now wish you had finished.

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Most people do not fail at the start. They fail in the middle, after the excitement burns off and before the harvest shows up.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

You will not outlast this by wanting it badly enough. You will outlast it by looking at Jesus long enough.

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OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV)

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JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Endurance costs something. So does keeping this on the air seven days a week. Faith Partners carry that cost so every episode stays free for the person who finds us at two in the morning with nothing left. If God has used this in your life, stand with us.

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MAIN MENTORING

Hebrews gives three moves, in order. Lay aside every weight, the extra that is not sin but slows you down. Lay aside the sin that clings close, the one thing you already know about. Then look to Jesus, who endured the cross for the joy set before Him. He did not endure by clenching. He endured by seeing.

Paul says suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. Every link depends on the one before it. The hard season you are in is not God losing track of you. It is where the thing you are asking Him for grows roots.

God is speaking in the middle of it, often as a quiet insistence to take one more step. Obedience in exhaustion is how you hear Him clearest. You have not quit yet. Something has been holding you, and it has a name.

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DAILY ACTION

Name one weight and one sin. Write both down. Cut the weight today. Confess the sin out loud to God and tell one trusted person before the week ends.

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THE DAILY CHARGE

You were not built to sprint. You were built to finish. Fix your eyes on Jesus and take the next step whether or not you feel like it.

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LET’S PRAY

Father, I am tired, and You already know it. Show me what I am carrying that You never handed me, and give me courage to set it down. Fix my eyes on Jesus, who endured for the joy set before Him. Build endurance in me, and character, and hope that does not put me to shame. Hold me steady until the finish. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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RAK CHAZAK!! Only. Be. Strong!Semper InvictusFaith. Fire. Victory.

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JOIN US

Come back tomorrow. We are staying in this all month, and endurance is not a solo sport. Subscribe so you do not miss a day, and send this to the one person you know who is closer to quitting than they are letting on.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Paul writes a progression in Romans that I think about often. Tribulation worketh patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope. Notice the order. He doesn’t skip from trial straight to hope. He makes you walk through patience and experience first, because hope that skips the process doesn’t hold the same weight as hope that was actually built through one.

I want to talk today about the specific kind of character that only trials can produce.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...You’ve wondered whether the character you’re developing right now, under real pressure, is actually more durable than character that never had to be tested at all.

Stay with me. Paul’s answer is yes, and I want to show you why the process matters as much as the outcome.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONTCharacter formed under pressure holds in a way character formed in comfort never has to prove it can. That’s not a small difference.

OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed.” — Romans 5:3-5

JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Character forged in trials is best recognized and celebrated in community, with people who watched you go through the fire and can tell you what it built. As a Faith Partner, you get more time with me each week and a community that sees your growth. Join us as a Faith Partner.

MAIN MENTORING

Paul says we glory in tribulations, and I don’t think he means we enjoy them. I think he means we understand what they produce, and that understanding changes how we hold them. He lays out a specific chain: tribulation produces patience, patience produces experience, and experience produces a hope that doesn’t disappoint.

Each link in that chain requires the one before it. You cannot get to the kind of hope Paul describes, hope that maketh not ashamed, without first walking through patience actually tested by tribulation, and experience actually earned by enduring. It’s not a hope you can shortcut your way into. It’s a hope built the way a callus is built, through actual friction, actual repetition, actual survival of something hard.

That’s why the character forming in you right now, in this season of trials, is not the same as character that never had to be proven under pressure. It’s slower to build. It costs more. And it holds in a way untested character simply cannot promise to hold, because it’s already been tested and it’s still standing. You are not wasting this season by going through it. You are building something in the exact way Paul describes, one link in a chain that ends in a hope sturdy enough to bear real weight.

DAILY ACTION

Trace Paul’s chain through your own life right now. Name the tribulation. Name the patience it’s producing. Ask God to keep building toward the experience and hope on the other end.

THE DAILY CHARGE

This trial is not a detour from building real character. It is the process. Trust the chain Paul describes. Tribulation, patience, experience, hope, each one earned, each one holding weight the shortcut version never could.

LET’S PRAY

Father, this season has cost me more than I expected, and I want to trust that it’s building something that will actually hold. Walk me through Paul’s chain, tribulation to patience, patience to experience, experience to a hope that doesn’t disappoint. I trust the process, even when it’s slow. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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If today helped you trust this process, subscribe and stay with us. One more day of teaching before we close out the month.

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BASED ON: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” — Isaiah 41:10

My child,

As this month comes to a close, I want to tell you plainly what I have wanted you to hear every single day of it. I have not left you in this trial. Not for one hour of it. Not on the hardest night, not during the longest silence, not in the part of the story that still doesn’t make sense to you. I was there for all of it, and I am here now.

I know this season tested you in ways that stripped a lot of what you were leaning on that wasn’t Me. That was never Me pulling away. That was Me staying close while everything false around you fell away, so what remained standing would be built on something that actually holds. You have been in the fire, and I have been in it with you, the whole time, not watching from a distance but present in the middle of the heat.

I told My people through Isaiah, fear not, for I am with thee. Not, I will be with you once this ends. I am with thee, present tense, in the middle of exactly what you’re facing. I said I would strengthen you, help you, uphold you with My own right hand, and that promise was not written for easier seasons. It was written for this one.

You have carried more this month than you probably realized until you look back on it. The waiting. The pressure. The moments you wondered where I was. I saw every part of it, and I was closer in those moments than you were able to feel. Refining is quiet work, and quiet does not mean absent. I have been sitting with this fire the entire time, watching closely, staying exactly as close as I promised I would.

As you move into what’s next, know this. Nothing you carried this month was wasted, and nothing about it happened outside My attention. I strengthened you even on the days you didn’t feel strong. I upheld you even on the nights you weren’t sure you’d make it through. That is who I am, and that has not changed, and it is not going to.

You are not walking out of this season the same person who walked into it. And I was with you for every step of becoming who you are now.

I love you,

Your Father

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If this letter met you at the close of a hard month, subscribe and stay with us. We’re heading into what’s next, and I don’t want you to walk into it without knowing how present God has been through all of this.

My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

WELCOME

Elijah had just won the biggest spiritual victory of his life, called down fire from heaven in front of the whole nation, and less than twenty-four hours later he was under a tree asking God to let him die. That’s not a contradiction in the text. That’s an honest picture of what real exhaustion does, even to people who just walked in tremendous faith.

I want to talk today about the specific kind of tired that isn’t the same as giving up.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...You haven’t lost your faith and you haven’t quit on God, but you are running on empty in a way that scares you a little, and you need to know that’s not the same thing as failure.

Stay with me. God’s response to Elijah wasn’t a lecture about weak faith. I want to show you what He did instead.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONTWeariness is not the same thing as defeat, and God’s response to your exhaustion looks a lot more like rest and food than rebuke.

OUR SPRINGBOARD FOR TODAY’S DISCUSSION IS:“And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat... And he arose, and did eat and drink, and laid him down again.” — 1 Kings 19:5-6

JOIN US AS A FAITH PARTNER

Exhaustion is easier to carry honestly when you’re not pretending to have more energy than you actually do. As a Faith Partner, you get more time with me each week and a community that lets weariness be real without shame attached to it. Join us as a Faith Partner.

MAIN MENTORING

Look at what God does not do when He finds Elijah under that tree, wishing he could die. He doesn’t remind him of the fire that fell from heaven the day before. He doesn’t question his faith or tell him to pull himself together. He sends an angel with food and lets him sleep. Twice. Rest, then a meal, then more rest, then another meal, before a single word of spiritual instruction is given.

I think we get this wrong more than almost anything else in our faith. We treat exhaustion like a spiritual failure that needs correcting fast, and God treats it like a physical and emotional reality that needs tending before anything else can happen. Elijah wasn’t rebuked for his weariness. He was fed and allowed to sleep, because God understood something we forget, that a person can be spiritually faithful and physically, emotionally depleted at the exact same time.

If you’re weary right now, deeply tired in a way that has nothing to do with your commitment to God, hear what this passage is actually saying. That weariness is not evidence you’ve failed. It’s evidence you’re human, carrying real weight, and it needs tending the same way Elijah’s did, with rest, with basic care, before you’re expected to have the strength for whatever comes next.

You are allowed to be tired without being defeated. Let God feed you and let you rest before you try to figure out what comes after this.

DAILY ACTION

Give yourself permission today to rest without guilt. Eat something. Sleep if you need to. Stop treating your exhaustion as a spiritual problem that needs to be solved immediately, and let God tend to you the way He tended to Elijah.

THE DAILY CHARGE

Being tired is not the same as being unfaithful. God fed Elijah before He corrected him. Let yourself be tended to. Rest is not the opposite of faith right now. It might be exactly what faith looks like today.

LET’S PRAY

Father, I am tired in a way that scares me, and I’ve been treating it like a failure instead of just being honest about it. Thank You for tending to Elijah before You asked anything else of him. Tend to me the same way. Give me rest, and remind me that weariness is not defeat. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.