Walking with the Lord can feel wearisome sometimes. Like we’re constantly facing trials and having to overcome adversity and tests from the enemy depending on the season we might be in. The deeper I walk with the Lord, the heavier the adversity can be – but with that, the sweeter the seasons of rest! He rewards us for faithfulness.
In Deuteronomy, after the Israelites had just endured the wilderness for forty years, they were about to enter the promised land. The land flowing with milk and honey, the prize for their obedience to the Lord! He calls it “the place of rest from your enemies”.
Deuteronomy 12:10
“But you will soon cross the Jordan river and live in the land the Lord our God is giving you. When He gives you rest from all your enemies and you’re living safely in the land..”
Standing firm and enduring what the enemy hurls at us doesn’t go unseen by God. It’s rewarded in due time. We have plowing seasons and we have harvest seasons. The harder the plowing season, the sweeter the harvest. The more pushback from the enemy, the more we should rejoice and know that if we fight the good fight and stay faithful through it, God will bring us to the next glory – the next place for our season of rest. We can look forward to knowing that it’s going to be good! That we’ll know Him better, have more peace, and become more like Him on the other side of those temporary pains.
With each trial and hardship, we are being transformed and sanctified, being pruned of our earthly nature and made more like Jesus!
2 Corinthians 3:18
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”.
It’s not fun or alluring to go through trials, but the harvests are indescribable. Too good to be true sometime
s. It isn’t always circumstantial, but a feeling of wholeness and rest in our souls that wasn’t there before. A refreshing of our souls that can only come from God.
Galatians 6:9
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”.
Let’s stay focused on what’s next. The season of plowing may feel like it never ends at times. And in those times, we can pause and look up from our lives. He’s still there leading us like He led the Israelites through the wilderness by pillar of cloud. And when we make our way out of the wilderness into the next place of rest He brings us to, we can know that we’ve been built up in a new level of endurance for the next season of plowing. It won’t hit the same. Our joy will be bigger, our peace will feel bigger even through all the punches from the enemy. We take the punches differently with each new glory God brings us to! The punches don’t affect us as painfully as they did before. We persevere better.
James 5:10-11
“Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy”.
Job came through his most agonizing season of plowing to the best season of harvest He’d ever seen in His life because he stayed faithful!
Job 42:12
“So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning”.
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