It’s a known reality that things are hardest before the blessing. If you’ve been praying a while for the desire of your heart, and you’ve gone through the ups and downs of emotional turmoil, you might be at the stage where things look very promising. It’s been a long arduous journey to get where you are. Your patience was tested. Your endurance endured, and you can see the finish line. A year ago, you wouldn’t even allow yourself to envision the future you’ve dreamed about, because you feared you’d only be setting yourself up for another disappointment. You told God, “Father, I’m not going to harp on this thing anymore. I’m just going to leave it all in your hands. If You want to give it to me, fine. If it doesn’t happen, I’m okay with that too.” God saw right past that. He knew it was that little bit of fear you were still clinging to, still afraid to fully hope it would all workout your way.
Now, when things look promising, another hiccup intercepts you. This is more common than you think. One of the truths that we must know as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is that the enemy is going to test our faith. The degree to which we truly desire the thing we’ve prayed to receive is going to be put through the paces. Many of us know this, but we sometimes forget. The manifestation of our desires is a journey, and there’s a point in it when we feel we’ve reached our limit. That point is usually just before the finish line. The emotional toll has pushed us to our breaking point, and we’re almost about to give up. Deep down, we know this is a spiritual battle and that our faith in God’s goodness must win, but our feelings are hurt about the whole thing. We don’t want to play anymore, and we’re angry that God has made moving from point A to point B so challenging.
The challenge all along has been about what you and I believe at our core, at the deepest part of our being. Hebrews 11:1,3(NLT) tells us, “1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Faith demands us to walk by believing and not by sight. We must believe in things that we cannot see. Taking this a bit further, 2Corinthians 4:18(NKJV) says, “While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The spiritual realm where God lives is more real than the things we can see with our physical eyes in this three-dimensional planet. Even though many of us have been on this Christian journey a very long time, we are still having some challenges to believe this with our whole hearts. But make no mistake, your faith in God must be greater and more real to you than the thing you desire most.
Hebrews 11:6(NLT) tells us, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” When God tells us that something is impossible, we had better believe that it is impossible. We cannot please God without faith. He has decreed that our faith in Him is the way we express our gratitude for all that He has done for us through Jesus Christ. Through our faith in Him, He makes us righteous, and we are able to come boldly before His throne with no sense of guilt, sin, or condemnation. We can see from Hebrews 11:6 that faith is extremely important to God, and therefore, it must be extremely important to us. It is the foundation of our relationship with Heavenly Father. So, it should be no secret that the devil is going to pull out all the stops to separate us from our faith in God.
Our faith in God can’t be dependent on what we want to receive from Him, and as a matter of course, our happiness can’t be dependent on something that isn’t real. We are spiritual people who must live spiritually. We must believe that God is who He says He is, and He will do what He says He will do. Some of us are chomping at the bits to make ourselves at home in the blessing when we’re not even feeling at home in God, and He’s our everything! So, adjusting our thoughts, feelings, and actions to line up with a fully persuaded, deeply anchored faith in God must take place. It’s the stretching of our faith that everyone talks about so much. Our trust and belief in God has to be real in us and it has to be real to us. We must be grounded in faith.
By osmosis, the residue of fear and doubt must be shaken loose. Sometimes in that last stretch there’s a shakening sent by the enemy to break us, but God is not going to let that movement be wasted. He’s going to turn it around for our good so that not only is our confidence in Him stronger, but our confidence in how His power moves through us will broaden and be strengthened as well.
When it appears that more is required of us, our go-to response is often to become emotional. God wants our go-to response to be faith. You’ve got to have an unshakable hope in God’s goodness, and although most of us say we do, the upset proves differently. Things are hardest before the blessing lands. Some of us have deeply seated fears that we’ve held on to like a teddy bear. The manifestation of the desire we hold in our hearts will press us to abandon those fears in order to make room in our hearts for what we desire. So, don’t let the devil fool you, you’re close to the blessing. Now is not the time to get weary. It’s time to anchor yourself for greater faith, higher levels of blessings, and a closer walk with God. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
“Things Are Hardest before the Blessing”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.