THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

I woke up with these words on my mind: “Don’t give up!” I immediately rejected that thought because I really did feel like giving up and had no desire to listen. Then I remembered going through YouTube videos one day and coming across one of this little girl singing “Never give up.”

When my daughter caught me listening to this out-of-tune girl singing she said, “Stop! Turn that off.”
It is such a cliché to say to someone who is struggling “Well, don’t give up, things will be brighter tomorrow.” Some days we can receive advice like that with delight; but on other days we could respond with attitude and completely turn away from those words
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Can you identify with the struggle I am describing?

I know the people close to me are thinking “When is she going to snap out of this funk?”
If they only knew all the thoughts I was struggling with. That is precisely the point. If they knew all of the thoughts I was thinking, they would tell me to stop it…and then they would nag me to not give up! Ugh! There are those words again. “Don’t give up!”

Instead of those reoccurring words, we could say to one another, “don’t delay, run straight to Jesus.”
The Bible teaches us, “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words” (1 Corinthians 2:11-13 NIV).

If we reminded ourselves daily that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), then we would hold the truth not of the world but the thoughts of Christ in our head and heart. This knowledge is completely different than what the world offers for advice when we are struggling. With Christ’s truth we must look at things differently. All our struggles can be covered by Jesus. We just need to know the truth!

PRAYER: Lord thank you for helping me to understand what you have freely given me. Teach me Lord your way to get through life struggles. Amen.