Grace When You’re Weary预览

I Am With You in All Things

"You are running. Arms bent. Body strong from years of determination and hard work. You are disciplined. Trying to eat the right things. Trying to be good about getting sleep. When you run, though, you feel alone. It is a state of mind you have always had: work hard, do your best, make sacrifices, expect a payoff as a result of all your efforts. It has always worked before."

"But in this running for so long, for so many years, you have decided, somewhere along the way, to not expect goodness. Your actions have become a bit robotic. You do the same thing day after day, expecting the same results. And I want to take you on a different journey now. It is a simple one, a new way of thinking about each task that you do, each goal you work to complete."

"But first, I have a few questions: What if the work you are doing seems like it has come to nothing? Can you imagine the payoff bringing you no reward? Can you imagine if the work you’ve completed fails to bring you the results you expected—all those countless hours lost? Will it feel, basically, like a life lost, too?"

"I ask you these things because I want you to consider your heart behind your work. There is a reason I have made you to enjoy certain things—and I have made you good at doing them. And sometimes the results of your labor seem pointless, useless when the outcome is not what you expected. But I am doing something in you, always. And I want you to approach your work with this expectation: I am with you in all things, not just when you are working, not just when you are sacrificing. I am with you when you are failing. I am with you when you are falling. I am with you when you are stressed. I am with you when you have messed up. I am with you when things are hard. I am with you when it feels all is lost. I am with you when you are lonely. I am with you when you are in pain."

"You can work hard, and you can do the things I have made for you to do. I love that—I love that about you. But don’t get tangled up in how love is something to be achieved, too. What you do in your work will not bring you the satisfaction of being loved by being my child. Nothing you do can earn you that seat, that robe, that inheritance, those keys to My kingdom. Only My love does that. And this love is not something you have to wait to receive through your efforts."

"I am here. I am loving you. I am adoring you and loving who you are. Right here. Right now. So let go. Drop your hands. Release your grip on effort that is tied to earning something that will never last. Cling to what does last. Cling to Me. I am strong. I am what you no longer have to work towards. I am the one who has found you. Trust that I help you stay with Me now. I am not letting you go.”

What line or lines are speaking to you the most right now? Name them and we’ll pray for you.