Get Real with God ~ STAND

Last week, as a family, we went through the book of Ephesians. What a great book of the Bible! During our fellowship time my husband had all the adults and children alike share what impacted them most in the book. It’s great to hear children talk about scripture, their interpretation is so pure. I’m going to share the part of Ephesians that impacted me the most and hope it encourages you too.

Remember a while ago when our family was going through a tremendously looooooonnnnngggg trail of joblessness. During that same time we came under persecution from our friends and leadership. It was an extremely hard time. I haven’t thought about it much since we’ve made it to the other side, but reading Ephesians and seeing all my underlining and circling, reminded me of that struggle and what the Lord spoke to me during that time.

Stand.

“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore having girded your waist with truth…” Ephesians 6: 11-14

I think this is a timely word, because everywhere I look I see believers dropping, falling away. The trails of life are hard. Sometimes it feels like God isn’t listening or doesn’t care. Sometime there’s not enough energy to pray or hope or believe. So what do you do? You STAND! You stand and take the hit—making sure you have your armor on, you keep on STANDING.

During that hard time in our life, all we could do was stand. That was it. We didn’t have the ability to move forward, we couldn’t duck to get out of the way, we couldn’t pray harder or hope more. And this is what God reminded us: STAND.

So if you are going through a particularly hard time please remember that sometimes all you can do is STAND. And that’s okay. Because sometimes that’s enough. And if you can do that, you’re going to make to the other side.

“…that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3: 17b-19