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There was a moment the other day when, as I was talking about trusting God with my plans for my career, I said, “I do believe that God has this plan for me, but I’m just afraid of being wrong”. And then I thought wait, what? If I truly know that this is God’s plan for me, then being wrong about that isn’t even on the table! And this isn’t the first time lately that I have felt so strongly about God calling me towards or assuring me of something, and then later began to second guess it. I’ll find myself thinking No, you must have been wrong about that. You won’t be good enough to do it. That couldn’t be God’s plan for you.

Of course, I want to be flexible and be at peace with life taking different directions than what I may expect. But, when I feel that God is confirming and giving me peace about a particular situation or decision, there should be no room in my mind for any doubt that He will make it happen. Even if things don’t go the exact way I anticipated or hoped for, I will never be wrong about trusting God’s guidance.

In the past I haven’t always recognized just how much it can hurt me to have unbelief in my heart; that’s something God’s been teaching me lately. When I doubt God’s promises or His willingness to care for me, I disregard what I know to be true about Him. He cannot go back on His word, so when He says that He loves me and has good in store for me, He means it. Unbelief does nothing but keep me from living fully in His will and from getting to be a part of His plans.

In Mark 9, we read that a man brought his son to Jesus. The son had been plagued by demonic activity for years, and no one, not even Jesus’ disciples, could rescue him from it. Finally, the man came to Jesus in desperation, pleading, “If You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” to which Jesus replied “If You can? All things are possible for the one who believes”. The father then cried, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

In saying this phrase, he gave himself over to the Lord’s will. I love how up front and honest he was with Jesus. He didn’t pretend to have it all together or sweep his doubts under the rug. Instead, he brought it all to Jesus – unashamedly claiming both his desire to believe and his struggle to do so. He asked Jesus to help him believe, and Jesus did.

In this story we see that the man’s past disappointments, or fears, or skepticism, or whatever it was that was making it hard for him to believe, did not lessen what Jesus was able do. And in the same way, when we offer our weaknesses to God in humility and honesty, He readily takes them upon Himself, and they hold no sway over His plans.

There was a time when I felt like I had to power through my doubts and insecurities if I was going to be a “good Christian”. But God knows what’s in my heart already – He knows about my weaknesses as well as my desire to trust Him. So, there’s no point in trying to ignore or hide my unbelief; God already sees it and wants to help me overcome it through His grace.

When I try to pretend my doubts don’t exist, I risk allowing them to hinder my obedience to God as I try to wrestle with them on my own. But when I humbly acknowledge to God my struggle to believe, and I ask Him to reassure and strengthen my heart, He is faithful to do so.

So, if we want to believe whatever God is showing us, but we’re struggling to get to that place of full faith, we can simply ask Him to help us and to give us the ability to trust Him. Whether we’re trying to stay on track, or to take the first step, or just to believe that God has a good plan waiting for us, He is with us every step of the way, ready to guide us if we let Him.

We do believe, Lord. Help our unbelief.

Related Scripture

Mark 9:17-29

And one person from the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, because he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff. And I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not do it”…And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to kill him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” But Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again!” And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him, and he got up. When He came into the house, His disciples began asking Him privately, “Why is it that we could not cast it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything except prayer.”

Lord, please renew a worshipful spirit within me.

Help me to not focus so much on simply getting through the day unscathed by sin or frustration, but instead to seek to joyfully worship You in all things. And let me not become prideful, attributing my successes to my own effort, seeking my own glory.

Convict me when I make my work an end in itself, when I try to simply check items off a list instead of passionately living for You. Help all my thoughts and actions to be an outpouring of the love I have for You, reflecting the joy I’ve found in Your salvation.

Train me to rejoice, to be grateful, to worship.

I ask that You put people in my life who encourage me to worship Your name; help me to be that person for others.

Let my days be saturated with worship of You, for You alone are worthy.

Related Scripture

Psalm 34:1-3

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.”

Psalm 51:10, 12

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.”

John 4:23-24

“…such people God seeks to be His worshippers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Psalm 145:5

“On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.”

God is so good! Undeniably, unchangingly good. I can pretty easily get caught up in the fear (more accurately, the lie) that at some point I will make too many mistakes and God’s just going to give up on working in my life – that there’s a limit to His plans for me. But that isn’t who He is. The Savior that suffered and died to free me from my sins is certainly not going to lose interest in me now! I remind myself of all the answered prayers and all the times He’s guided me, whether I realized it in the moment or not. Why should I expect that now His character and His love towards me have suddenly changed?

People are certainly fickle. Circumstances are unpredictable. Our trust takes a hit when our loved ones let us down and when life deals us an impossible hand. But God is not going to fail us, ever. He is the only one in whom we can be completely secure. This post is partly an encouragement for whoever reads it, and partly an accountability moment for me. I’m committing myself now to stop doubting God’s consistency, to quit expecting Him to change on a dime or to leave me in the dust. Instead, I am going to actively and joyously put my faith in the only One who is truly faithful.

Recently I started making a list of all the circumstances in my life in which I have seen God’s hand at work. In some of these I didn’t realize He was moving in the situation until much later, which is why I wanted to write them all down. There will be seasons when it’s hard to trust God, when it seems like there’s no way that my situation can result in anything close to good. But in those moments I can look back at my list and be reminded of all the other times I felt this way and how God proved me wrong in each and every circumstance. He has shown Himself faithful to me in times when I’ve needed guidance, protection, conviction (and subsequent forgiveness), encouragement, friendships, and peace. And I know He has also been faithful to me in ways that I haven’t yet recognized.

When I begin to feel overwhelmed with concerns over how I’m going to make it through a difficult season, I can turn to Scripture and to this list to remind myself of all the tangible ways I’ve experienced God’s love throughout my life. I encourage you to do the same! Instead of being fearful over the unknown, we can be thankful because of what we do know. God’s goodness and faithfulness is inherent to His nature; there’s no circumstance in life that can negate that. From way before the beginning of our lives, to long after we’re gone, He has been and will continue to be a good, faithful God. Our awareness of God’s faithfulness in our past is what fuels our security in His faithfulness for our future.

Related Scripture

Psalm 37:35

“I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken.”

1Thessalonians 5:24

“Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”

Psalm 13:5-6

“But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

Romans 8:31-32, 38-39

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, not things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“O God of my praise, do not be silent! For they have opened the wicked and deceitful mouth against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without cause. In return for my love they act as my accusers; but I am in prayer.” (Psalm 109:1-4)

This passage begins with the psalmist’s powerful lament over mistreatment from others. He writes of how people have spoken against him with a lying tongue and fought against him without cause. His pain and feelings of betrayal are evident. These verses resonate with me as I am someone who continually wrestles with the desire to be loved and accepted by others, and am often disheartened when I feel others’ rejection in my life. I suspect this is not a unique struggle – we all crave approval and are wounded by the absence of it. In times of conflict, when we feel that no one cares for us, it is easy to feel worthless, or angry, or resentful.

Yet, in verse four, he writes, “but I am in prayer”. With this phrase he realigns his focus on the One who cares for him.

We know we’ll have trouble throughout life and that at times those around us, even those we care for, may be against us. In spite of it all, we are able to say, “but I am in prayer”. The verse does not say “but I am in pain” or “in doubt” or “in bitterness”. Instead, it redirects our attention from the hurts we’ve endured to the One who will never hurt us. From the rejection we feel from others to the One who has formed us, chosen us, and loved us. “But I am in prayer” is not an empty phrase; it reflects an intentional positioning of our hearts. I want my thoughts, my actions, and my life to be totally characterized by being in prayer. I want to be in regular, constant, never-ending communion with God, making fellowship with Him my go-to weapon against the tough parts of life.

Lord, let the whole of my heart, despite – and because of – my earthly battles, be in prayer. Remind me that my worth and my peace are found in You. Help me to crave this fellowship with You, to seek it out, so that I will continually be found in prayer.

Related Scripture

Psalm 55:16-18

“As for me, I shall call upon God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice. He will redeem my soul in peace from the battle which is against me.”

Isaiah 41:9-10

“…I have chosen you and not rejected you. Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you. Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Sometimes I think we forget that salvation is not the end of our Christian journey. While it is certainly a huge piece of God’s plan of redemption, it does not stop there. We were never intended to simply pray a prayer and then continue living as we were; God calls us to so much more! His transformative love should become the center around which our lifestyle, our outlook, and our entire existence revolves. But practically, what does that look like?

We are called not only to justification – the forgiveness of our sin and the being made righteous in God’s eyes – but to sanctification – the process of becoming more like Christ, of living a holy life empowered by the Spirit. 1 Peter 2:11 tells us to “abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul”, to act like strangers to sin. And this we can do in Christ; the sin that used to rule our lives can do so no longer! This does not mean that we will be perfect, but that by desiring righteousness and surrendering ourselves in obedience to the work of the Holy Spirit, we can more often resist temptation and walk in integrity.

And yet, that is still not all that we are saved for.

Being transformed spiritually does not apply only to avoiding sin, but also to living with renewed purpose as we grow in our relationship with the Lord. While every believer has a unique design and calling, there is a general guiding purpose for all of us to follow. We are called to be above reproach, to forgive readily and freely, to put the welfare of others above our own, to continually grow and move in obedience even outside of our comfort zones, and to seek and worship God in all we do. And we are to boldly speak of what God has done for us – evangelism should not come just from pastors and missionaries, but from everyone whose story has been changed by God. All this we can be inspired and motivated to do by the knowledge that we are so deeply loved, forgiven, and empowered by the grace of God.

Ultimately, we must seek to view earthly events through a heavenly lens, deliberately choosing to look at both the positive and negative circumstances of our lives as opportunities to be obedient in bringing glory to God. In doing so we can live actively, on-purpose, to fulfill what He desires. We are commanded to rejoice and to praise God in every situation, to stand firm against temptation (and grow as a result of it), to bring encouragement to fellow believers while holding one another accountable, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a broken world. So, let’s not sit idly by while we wait to meet Jesus in heaven. Let’s live intentionally now, seeking Him and pursuing this God-given purpose of believers.

Related Scripture

2 Corinthians 10:5

“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

1 Peter 2:9-12, 16

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation…Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God”.

1 Thessalonians 4:7

“For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

Psalm 56:13

“For You have delivered my soul from death, indeed my feet from stumbling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living.”

2 Peter 1:5-8

“Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So often I struggle with accepting God’s forgiveness in my life. While I have absolutely trusted in Him as my Savior and know that He died and rose again to wipe away my sins, I still have a difficult time actually grasping that redemption in my daily life.

On days when my failures are especially evident, I can become overwhelmed with feelings of unworthiness, and I am faced with the temptation of wanting to avoid God until I can somehow manage to fix myself (In case you were wondering, that has yet to work out).

But what a horrible injustice that is to the character of God! How can I look at my Creator – the One who never changes, who is the very essence of love, who went so far as to sacrifice Himself while I was dead in my sin – and decide that He isn’t big enough to forgive my deeper failures? He is not surprised by our flaws – while He cannot condone our sins, He loves us too much to let them get in the way of His building a relationship with us. If God designed a perfect way to bring us back into fellowship with Him, why should we feel as though that is not enough?

I have to remind myself that the act of forgiving is not something that He does begrudgingly – as Isaiah 30 says, “the Lord longs to be gracious” to us, and He “waits on high to have compassion” on us.

Is this truly possible? That God longs to be gracious us? That despite our sin, His desire is for us? In short, absolutely! And if we know that He feels this strongly for us, that He aches to love us, then we know that we can trust Him fully with the depth of our sin and struggles. We can be so secure in His love for us.

Related Scripture

Isaiah 30:18

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”

1 John 1:9

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Psalm 127:2

“…for He gives to His beloved even in His sleep”

Micah 7:18

“Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love.”

Daniel 9:18

“…we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion.”

Our hearts are so often divided. Our loves and desires, our future plans, and our insecurities constantly pull our focus. If you only knew how often my prayers are interrupted by my internal to-do list or by the day’s questions and anxieties. Almost immediately after the words “I trust you, Lord. Your will be done” leave my lips I wonder how I’m going to get through the day. Thankfully, I know that I am not alone in this; it’s human nature to forget the promises of God in light of the frustrations of the day. We are ruled by the temporal. But the good news is that our Creator is not unaware of our fickle nature, and He loves us in spite of it. He knows our weaknesses and how easily we can be influenced by the world. So let’s not be ashamed to ask Him to reorient our desires towards Him. We must begin every day by asking God to make us aware of the ways our hearts shift focus, and then to unite our hearts to fear His name alone. He won’t deny a willing heart; He will be faithful to teach us to walk in His way.

Related Scripture

Psalm 86:11

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth. Unite my heart to fear Your name.”

Wow, way to start off really positive, right? Who starts a blog of encouragement with You are not enough? Me, apparently. But the contents of this post are actually what inspired this entire blog, and I promise it’s much more encouraging than the title makes it sound!

So, some backstory: My junior year of college was exhausting. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, I was drained. In everything I worked at, everything I committed to, I fell short of my expectations. Even though I looked at all my commitments as opportunities to serve the Lord, nothing seemed to go right, and I was confused. Why wasn’t I good enough? I was working hard at things that mattered, and yet I wasn’t making any progress. By the end, I was in a period of greater self-doubt and spiritual dryness than I had ever been in.

Throughout the year, as I spent time in the Word, in prayer, and in church, I noticed a recurring theme. Humble yourself. God blesses the humble. Which left me even more confused than before. A lack of humility seemed to be the opposite of my problem – I had kept telling myself that if I could only get some self-confidence, could only be more bold, could only quit sabotaging myself with insecurity, then maybe I would succeed. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was pointing these passages out to me, and so I made a mental note to keep humility in the back of my mind.

Fast forward a couple of months. My exhausting year had peaked in pretty exhausting ways, and then I abruptly found myself in a position of complete and utter stillness. All of my busyness had ended, leaving me with nothing except quiet and room for reflection. As I spent less time running around trying (and struggling) to do things for God, I now spent much more of my time with God. And once again, humility came to mind. This time, however, there was more to it. Through the voices of friends, books, and Scripture, God revealed to me that while all that I was pursuing were good, productive endeavors, in each of them I was working in my own strength. Of course I would say, and even feel, that I was giving them up to God, but without even realizing it I would backtrack and try to retain as much control as possible.

And here’s the problem with that. When we try to make good happen by our own self-effort, we will undoubtedly fail more often than not. Then we’ll become discouraged and be too fearful or frustrated to be used by God again. And in the event we do succeed, our sense of self will inflate, and we’ll stop relying on God. So even though I felt that I was being humble to a fault, beating myself up for all my failures and inadequacies, the very fact that I was attempting to accomplish things on my own was a sign of pride – a sign that I expected myself to be able to succeed by my own strength.

And that’s the realization that I have repeatedly had to come to. I am not enough. Not only that, but I will never, under any circumstances, be enough. That’s the entire point of the gospel, and the entire point of grace. Christ died for us because we are incapable without Him: incapable of saving ourselves, incapable of serving Him, incapable of loving our neighbor. So we might as well embrace that truth and let Him fully into our lives. If we don’t, we will continue to fall somewhere between discouraged and prideful, between why-bother-trying and I-can-do-it-myself. But that’s not what God wants for us. His desire is to richly bless us and our endeavors, and to let us experience His love in ways we’ve never felt before.

What if, instead of berating ourselves for every weakness or insecurity, we started rejoicing in them, as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 12? How would that change our perspective on serving? Or on our ability to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves as we should? If we would dedicate ourselves to walking in humility, to striving simply to be faithful to God’s call, and to releasing this pressure of perfection, just how much peace and security might be recovered in our lives?

Related Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:9

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 

Jeremiah 9:23-24

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not a mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me…”

Colossians 1:29

“For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”

1 Peter 4:11

“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

An entry I wrote last fall:

I’ve been so overwhelmed with shame, kind of out of nowhere, and I’ve been feeling as though God is just going to give up on me. Even in my prayers, I feel that I can’t ask anything of Him because I am so unworthy. I feel like I can’t love myself and like no one else can either. But then I set aside time to really pray and be completely vulnerable with Him, knowing that of course I am unworthy, but that I can bring my messy self to Him anyway. Almost immediately after this I began seeing answered prayers, and I realized that He had already begun the work of renewal in my heart, before I had even asked Him. Below I’ve listed some of the truths He’s spoken to me today.

He’s begun to bring me back to a place of joy and hope in His salvation. He’s helped me to recognize and rejoice in His gift to me, and to do so freely and without condemnation.

He’s shown me that awareness of my own unworthiness should lead to humility, not shame.

He’s given me peace, allowing me to rest in the truth that He still loves me and isn’t giving up on me. Even when I don’t know how to pray as I should, the Holy Spirit intercedes for me. He’s reminded me to pray for His blessing on all that I do (including writing this devotion).

He’s led me to Jude 1:24-25. I randomly felt like reading this chapter, after which I opened a devotional that was written about these verses. I knew then that God truly was asking me to focus on this passage. In this He reminded me that He is the one who can make me stand, blameless and with great joy – the very things I had prayed for – in spite of my shortcomings.

How can I doubt His love for me and His presence actively moving in my life? This has been a great reminder that He really does care for me, that He pursues me and has patience with me. He doesn’t expect me to be perfect, because only He is. So I can give it all to Him and make room for Him to work in my life.

In this process, God has shown me that when we pray to Him, we must be expectant, excited to hear what He has to say. When we are obedient to His leading, humbling our hearts before Him, He will so often bless and renew us with comforting words like these.

Related Scripture

Jude 1:24-25

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”