It’s Not That Simple
Stuck is a way of saying you can’t move forward and there’s nothing you can do about it. Circumstances have assumed control. Things are hopeless and you are helpless, so you might as well quit trying. It’s a frustrating, powerless feeling. But that’s not how God operates. That’s not even his nature. He’s not a frustrated, powerless God, and he didn’t create you to live a frustrated, powerless life.
God is the waymaker. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-consuming. He causes valleys to be raised up and mountains be made low. He turns graves into gardens and bones into armies.
You can expect to put work into moving forward. You should plan on knocking on a lot of doors and asking for a lot of help. Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8). There’s no shame in asking, seeking, and knocking. It doesn’t mean you lack faith, and it doesn’t mean God fell asleep on the job.
It just means you’re putting in the work to get to where you need to be. But if you don’t believe you can move forward, you won’t ask or seek or knock. You’ll just sit there, miserable under 285 pounds of weight, wishing you were somewhere else while people in the nosebleeds holler at you.
Don’t give the obstacle, the enemy, the failure too much credit. No matter what has made you feel stuck, God is bigger than that thing, and he’s already on the other side of it. It’s not the end of the road. It’s just a curve you can’t see past. Maybe it’s even a fork that will open up new opportunities. If you give up now, you’ll never know what miracle God has just ahead.
More Than What You’re Missing
You are enough. Not some idealized, impossibly perfect version of you. Not the person you wish you were. Not the person your parents told you that you should be. Not the person you’re pretending to be. Not the person in your Tinder profile or Instagram posts.
You. Today. Right now. You are already accepted by God. You already have the mind of Christ. The Spirit already dwells in you. God’s promises are already yours. Don’t say you’re not enough: say you’re now enough. That’s how God sees you, and that’s what Christ makes you.
You’re not done changing, of course. You are being conformed and transformed into his image every day, so there are some habits and immaturities you still have to leave behind. But in your essence, at your core, you are who you need to be because you are handmade by God. You are the handiwork of the divine. He made you on purpose. That is the you that you need to accept because it is the one God made.
Forward, Not Finished
“With God there’s always a way” doesn’t mean that with God you’ll always get your way. And that’s why you need the second half: “and by faith I will find it.” You don’t need a lot of faith when circumstances go your way. You need faith when they don’t go your way and you have to believe that this is actually God’s way.
Sometimes God takes the thing away, and sometimes he takes you through the thing. Either way, he will be faithful, and he’ll keep you safe. And along the way, your faith enables you to grow through whatever you go through.
Is there something in your life that looks finished, but a voice inside you is telling you that it’s not over yet? Is God reminding you, “Go forward! You’re not finished”? Listen to that voice. That’s the voice of the new you calling you to step into who you really are.
Let faith rise up again. In God, there is a way forward. He is all powerful and always faithful. You might not see the way now, but it will be there when you need it. By faith you will find it, and step by step you’ll walk in it.
That Lizard Is Loud
When we get scared, we tend to shrink ourselves. We start running from stuff and hiding from stuff, even if nothing is chasing us, and even when God has made us strong enough for the challenge at hand. Well, it’s because you’ve been attacked before. It’s because you’ve been rejected before. It’s because you’ve tried to step into something greater before. Then you look at what’s ahead of you in this season of your life, and you think, “I’m not enough for this. I’m not as smart as them. I’m not as good as them.”
It’s harder for the enemy to hit a moving target. Often the answer to the fear you feel isn’t to stay still but to get going. Get going. Be a moving target. If the enemy is going to come after you, don’t let him find you in the winepress. Let him find you on the field of battle
Haters are gonna hate. Critics are gonna criticize. Critters are gonna crit. Lizards are gonna lie. That’s what they do. But you don’t have to listen to them. They can’t overrule what God says about you. For fear to shut up, you have to step up. If God is for you, no demon or devil, lie or lizard, or fear or foe can ultimately prevail against you. He’s on your side. He’s got your back. He’s in it with you, working through you, fighting for you.
The Hard Work of Happiness
We tend to put our feelings on the throne. If we want to go off about something, we go off. If we want to sleep in, we sleep in. If we want to skip leg day, we skip leg day. If we feel like doing something sinful to feel relief in a stressful moment, we justify it: “Oh, it’s not that bad.” We let our feelings tell us what is best, what is true, what is right.
But feelings aren’t meant to be followed. They’re meant to be conditioned and conformed to the image of Christ. The problem with deceitful desires is that, by definition, you don’t know they are wrong. You can have cravings, feelings, emotions, and needs that present themselves to you as absolute truth, but they aren’t what they claim to be. They are sneaky. They are subtle. They are convincing. But they are not always right.
Jesus told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). Later he said to them, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy… I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (John 16:20, 22).
God gives you a peace that the world can’t give you. He gives you a joy nobody can steal from you. Even when the world is shifting and quaking around you, his peace is your peace. His joy is your joy. His confidence is your confidence.
You don’t have to be the most cheerful, extroverted, life-of-the-party person on the outside. That’s okay. Your family loves you anyway. Besides, your seriousness might be part of what paid for the vacation. On the inside, though, you can know that your joy is real, and it’s yours, and you’re growing more and more each day into the image of Christ in you.
Look to the Left
You might be hidden, but things are still happening. Secret doesn’t mean static or stale or stagnant. Maybe you’re a stay-at-home parent and you feel forgotten, but you’re putting values in your kids, and they’re going to be strong, healthy people because of your investment. Maybe in some area of life God is using you in an imperceptible way to shift something. You don’t see it yet, but he does, and your faithfulness is having an effect. Maybe you’re doing things that seem so natural to you that you barely notice them or brush them off as insignificant, but your contributions will bear fruit for years to come.
Only you could do what you’re doing, and you need to know that. Don’t despise the left-handed skills. The left-handed strategies. The left-handed risks. The left-handed plans. The left-handed miracles. Don’t assume the “right” way is the right way. It might be right to you but wrong to God.
He’s doing something unexpected, something the enemy didn’t see coming and won’t be able to stop. It might not have happened yet, but it will. You’ll see it, and you’ll be part of it, if you learn to look to the left.