Today I wanted to give up, thinking my ministry was a mistake. I even questioned if I heard God!
Surely there would be measurable growth. Yet it feels like not much is happening. Yes, I know feelings can be wrong and should not become the scale to measure success or the compass to determine direction. I just want to be transparent with my process.
Then I questioned, do I get to determine if there is growth? Should I even be trying to measure what success looks like from God's perspective? God's ways are not my ways, and I might be missing something that He sees, and I don't.
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9 AMPC)
Could it be that I'm right where God means for me to be doing exactly what He wants me to do in this season? There are things going on that I don’t see or even know. That's God's business, not mine. My job is obedience no matter how I feel or what it looks like. God is responsible for the results not me.
"So we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are visible are temporal [just brief and fleeting], but the things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable." (2 Corinthians 4:18 AMP)
Yes, today I wanted to quit. I wondered if it mattered. I wondered who would care?
Then I remembered:
"For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable. [He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call.]" (Romans 11:29 AMPC)
How I feel is immaterial to what God has called and empowered me to do. I must believe that God is working in me and through me. What He wants to accomplish will happen in His timing not mine.
"[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight." (Philippians 2:13 AMPC)
I must believe that no matter how alone, unsupported, or unseen I may feel I am not alone, unsupported, or unseen. God is with me. He cares. He sees.
"For He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]" (Hebrews 13:5 AMPC)
"So she called the name of the Lord Who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing, for she said, Have I [not] even here [in the wilderness] looked upon Him Who sees me [and lived]? Or have I here also seen [the future purposes or designs of] Him Who sees me?" (Genesis 16:13 AMPC)
So, for now I'm going to keep my eyes on Jesus and my purpose. Satan will not deceive, derail, discourage, or disappoint me. I've already won this battle. Now I just need to walk in it.
"I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward." (Philippians 3:13-14 AMPC)
Be Encouraged! ❤