Our obsessive focus on the finish line makes us focus on the reward instead of God. It makes us envious of others who’ve already hit the finish line. And it makes us overlook the positive, significant steps we’ve already taken with the LORD toward our goal.
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another post.
Lately I’ve made a few posts about waiting on the LORD, and being able to delay gratification. Waiting on the LORD isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it. You can check through my recent posts to read more about this.
One of the things that makes waiting on the LORD so difficult is not seeing any obvious progress. It feels like we’re going nowhere, spinning our wheels, stuck in the mud. But this isn’t the case. Just because we don’t see progress doesn’t mean it’s not there. And oftentimes, we overlook the very significant progress that already has been made!! Besides which, the little baby steps are an important part of our growth as we follow the LORD and purse the desires of our heart.
It’s a process, and we need to have patience with the process. More importantly, we need to have faith in God and not doubt what He tells us. And that’s the topic for today: Stop doubting!!
And to help us all get the point, I’m sharing an excellent video from Christian YouTuber Stephanie P Smith.
Stephanie P Smith says, “STOP IT🛑”
Today I’m sharing a message by Christian YouTuber Stephanie P Smith. It’s about doubting while we wait on the LORD, and overlooking the progress we’ve made with Him. I’ve posted on waiting on the LORD recently, so the video goes well with some of the posts I’ve made in the last few weeks.
I really liked her video, and I think it’s spot on. But I’m not sure if I can give the rest of her channel an unconditional blanket endorsement. I can’t condemn it either, because I haven’t watched much else of it.
I enjoyed today’s video so much, and it spoke to me so specifically, that of course I looked through her channel to see what other videos she’s made. And I don’t appreciate videos with attention grabbing titles like “your blessing is coming soon!!” These are often meant to attract views and get people excited with talk of rewards, the kind of thing people want to hear.
But the video I share today is not like that at all. It’s a good message with a great perspective grounded in experience and a Scriptural mindset. All I really ask is any time you find a new preacher on YouTube or any other place, make sure you test every spirit (1 John 4:1). By that I mean, scrutinize the truth of their message against Scripture.
Check out the video below, and if you like it go to Stephanie P Smith‘s channel, and you can decide for yourself.
The video is titled “Doubting all the signs GOD has already shown you! STOP IT🛑 Encouragement Friday! prophetic word” by Stephanie P Smith.
So let’s talk about her message, because it’s spot on and so true.
Overlooking Our Accomplishments
She makes a great point about how we often feel like were not progressing toward our goals and blessings. But that if we look back, there is progress in our lives when we follow the LORD. And we may be overlooking some of the small, but significant and meaningful little milestones we’ve already hit. We may be overlooking the baby steps we’ve taken toward a goal; and those baby steps may be crucial for our eventual success.
For example, if the goal is to start a business, Stephanie says maybe we got your website done and that’s it. And we overlook that; you downplay the significance of that. So we feel like we aren’t receiving our blessing on time. But we aren’t seeing the fact we’re on our way to our blessing, and that we’ve taken an important and un-skippable first step. We can’t have a business without making the website first. Which means that getting our website done is an important and significant step toward our goal and what we want in life.
But we tend not to see things that way. We tend to focus only on the goal, only on the reward we don’t have yet. We tend to focus on the finish line we haven’t reached. It’s a human tendency; I’ve done it, you’ve done it, we all do this a lot. We should all have compassion on ourselves for making this mistake, because it can be tough to keep our perspective correct in this area. And there are also things working against us in this area.
We live in a world that constantly reminds us of what we don’t have. The world does this so we buy the things we don’t have; they need us to feel incomplete so that we can be good consumers. They need us to feel like we need this or that because we won’t consume if we already feel fulfilled and whole. So what I’m saying is the world works against us to lead us into the sins of envy and comparison with others. The world tries to make us feel less than, so that we’ll buy or pursue things to feel like everyone else.
But there’s nothing besides the LORD God that can grant permanent fulfillment and satisfaction. Anything we can gain in this temporary world—even good things like dreams and blessings we’ve wanted for a long time—doesn’t last. This world is temporary and nothing lasts down here. But the LORD is eternal, the LORD lasts forever and our true blessing is our inheritance in the LORD. There is nothing wrong with asking the LORD for blessings like a successful business or loving marriage. But we must never forget it’s only the LORD who satisfies forever. Any of these other blessings, nice as they are, don’t last.
The more we take refuge in the LORD and look to him for our contentment, the safer we’ll be from the sin of envy, and the easier it’ll be to keep our perspective correct on what we don’t have versus what we really do have in the LORD.
One thing I’ve learned very clearly in my Walk is this: The devil tempts us to think of what we don’t have, God wants us to be Grateful for what we do have. The devil tempts us to the sins of envy and comparison with others so we’ll always want more. God guides us to the Virtue of Gratitude so we’ll always be Thankful and content in our inheritance in the LORD as a Child of God.
It’s not sinful to want a blessing. But we must never let that good desire lead to the sins of envy toward others and ingratitude toward God.
But that’s starting to get a little off track from Stephanie Smith’s message. Let me bring this back to her great message.
Our obsessive focus on the finish line makes us focus on the reward instead of God. It makes us envious of others who’ve already hit the finish line. And it makes us overlook the positive, significant steps we’ve already taken with the LORD toward our goal.
These little steps we’ve taken with the LORD should be a great source of Faith and Hope. We should be encouraged by these, knowing that if we stick with Him it’s only inevitable we reach the finish line one day.
If He Brought Us this far ….
If we look back a year or two, we should see some progression in our life. We may have to think about it, but it’ll be there. Especially if we’ve been following the Lord while working toward some goal. The progression may be small, it may be made of a series of baby steps, but it’s still progression. And that progression may be more significant and important than we give credit for.
Stephanie Smith asks, “if you can look back and see progression, don’t you think that progression will continue until the outcome??” And she’s exactly right. We’re closer now to our goal than we were when we started. If the LORD brought us here, why wouldn’t He take us to the end?? What would be the point of leaving us halfway??
As long as we stay faithful to the LORD, we are always getting closer to our blessing with every single day. Because—again, I can’t say this enough—our true blessing is our inheritance of Eternal Life with the LORD. So we’re always getting closer to that every single day, as long as we stay Faithful.
But chances are very high were also getting one day closer to other blessings the LORD wants to give us. But He loves us too much to give us what we ask for before we’re ready for it. He doesn’t want to give us blessings that we’re going to lose because we can’t handle them. He wants to grow us, and make sure we’re mature enough to handle the blessings we’re asking for.
This goes back to the idea of instant gratification versus God’s gratification. I posted on this very recently. The devil gives us exactly what we ask for, right when we ask for it. The devil doesn’t make us work for anything we ask him for. He gives us what we want right down to the smallest detail right when we ask for it, because he knows we’re going to mess up and lose it, and he wants to see us in despair and cursing God. The devil also gives us exactly what we ask for when we ask for something that isn’t good for us, but don’t know it.
But God gives us what’s best for us; it’s not always the exact thing we asked for. God does this because He knows what is the very best for us. And He loves us too much to give us anything less than the very best. He also loves us too much to give out those Holy blessings before we’re ready to take care of them and keep them. Because He Loves us, He doesn’t want to give a blessing He will then have to take away because we were not mature enough to respect or care for it. God wants to grow and prepare us first.
So to bring it back to what Stephanie is saying, understand that the little baby steps, the slow progress toward our goal, this is a very important part of the process. And it’s also an important part of our growth in the LORD. The growth is there, and it’s real. Don’t doubt it!!
This is an issue of knowing how to wait on the LORD. Because the LORD does not work or do anything on our timing. The LORD moves in His own timing, and it’s always perfect. It’s not always easy to wait on the LORD, especially when we don’t see obvious and drastic progress. But it is always worth it. So have Faith, and don’t doubt the Promises of God. Like Stephanie Smith says, if God has shown you you’re on the right track, then keep going and don’t doubt!!
She says it perfectly in the title of her video even. “Doubting all the signs GOD has already shown you?? STOP IT🛑”
“STOP IT🛑” That’s kind of what it all comes down to, isn’t it??
Well that’s all for today. If you enjoyed today’s post, be sure to Subscribe using the link below. And please consider Supporting My Blog using the Tip Jar. Any amount is much appreciated!
Until next time, be strong and do good!
Your new best friend in Christ,
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