Have life's circumstances landed you in a place where you just don't know how you're going to get through it all?
For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Wendy Blight: Thanks, Kaylee. Okay, the title of our message today, the teaching is” “How Do I Get Through This?: Pressing on When You Want To Give Up, Turn Back, or Walk Away” And this is a really important question. And I want you to notice the word choice today. We're asking, “How do I get through this?” Not, “How do I avoid this?” Not, “How do I get to the other side as quickly as possible?” But, “How do I get through this?” And that means it's a process, and it will probably be hard and may be long.
And to be honest, the two most common emotions that drive us to ask this question are fear and anxiety. And sometimes they feel the same y'all, but they are really different. Fear sees a threat and screams, “Run!” Anxiety imagines a threat and dials right in on “What if?” “What if this happens? What if that happens?” And it's those fears and threats, those imagined threats and “what ifs.” That's what deceives us and often convinces us to give up, turn back or walk away.
And a few years ago, I found myself struggling with severe anxiety, the kind where I didn't want to leave my house or be with friends. I couldn't sleep; everything overwhelmed me, even the very smallest of tasks. I cried more than I didn't. I missed out on the fun things with my family because I just didn't want to even leave my house. And then that anxiety brought these unwanted visitors called shame and guilt. And I had shame because I'm a Christian, and I believe in God. So why am I going through this? And guilt because I'm a Bible teacher. And I've written books on overcoming fear and trusting God. And I'm really often the person people come to me for help on this. Yet there I was. And I couldn't understand why the tools in my toolbox were not making me better. And all I wanted was to be normal again. I wanted to go back to life before my uncontrollable emotions took control of my life.
And I want to ask you as we start. Have you felt that way? Or are you feeling that way right now where you longed for normalcy again, to be that girl you once were? And if so, you are in the right place today. In fact, I believe with all my heart because we pray over this, you were prayed here, either by someone on our team or someone who deeply loves you.
For me, after months with no change, I finally took my doctor's advice and went to a counselor, and I chose a Christian counselor, and her name was Rebecca. I told my story. We prayed. She was very honest, and really the hardest part of the time—my time with her at the beginning—was how she shot down every expectation I had coming in, which was, “I want a quick fix. Just give me some new tools so I can walk out of here and be better, so I can be normal.” And it was hard because she said, “Wendy, there isn't an easy fix. This is going to take time and hard work.” And she won me. It may not, you may not go back to normal the way you know it, but she did promise me this, and I'll never forget it. She goes, “If you invest the hard heart work this will take, you will land in a more healthy place. It will be different. But it will be better.” And that was important to hear. It will be different, but it will be better. And I held on to that.
And so, as I share the rest of my story and talk about what helped me, I want you to think of your own right now. If you have paper, jot down notes when I'm starting to share my story, maybe you identify or when I start talking about the steps we can take, or make mental notes if you're riding in your car with your kids. But just a few visits into my counseling, what happened was she uncovered what brought me to this place. And she really called it a perfect storm.
Weatherwise a perfect storm is a particularly violent storm that arises from this rare combination of adverse weather factors up in the atmosphere. But in life, a perfect storm is also a rare combination, but it's of hard, often unpredictable events or circumstances, and they all rush in at once and produce the place we find ourselves in the hard season. And she explained for me that well, first of all, I told her, “I've been through hard times before; I don't understand this, but I've never fallen apart like this. So, what's wrong with being, you know, what's wrong with me? Why is this different?”
And she said, “Well, it isn't just one or two events,” but many hard winds had blown in my life at the same time. My youngest son left for college leaving us a very empty nest at age 52. At that same year, my husband lost his job for the first time ever in his career. And then a few months later, my best friend's 20-year-old firefighter son, who was like our family, died fighting a fire. And then the most devastating of all was, and the one that we think pushed me over the edge, was someone very important and close to me in my life just chose to walk out of my life. And so much so, she lived 15 minutes away and moved four and a half hours to another city. And I can't share any more than that because it's complicated and hard. But then in the midst of all of this, as we all know, life goes on.
So, I was teaching Bible study, I was volunteering for Proverbs 31 Online Bible Studies, I was writing for First 5, and I had a book that was about to be published, so I was working on the final edits. And so—here's the thing—there's so much heartache, and so much loss and so much pain, but at the same time, so much responsibility that I still was holding on to and had to live out. And Rebecca encouraged me, “Wendy, you really could have handled any one or two of these. But these waves of grief and loss and hurt were all rushing in at one time, wave after wave and there was no, like, normal to be found. And so, there was pain and grief and anger.”
And I don't know, maybe you're there as you're listening to me, you are feeling that. Because walking with God feels so easy when things are going well, but it doesn't come so easy when life is turning upside down like that. And so that is why I'm here. When Kaley reached out to me I, I see what happened to me is—as this is part of the purpose in it—is to come and share that if you're listening to this and God feels far away, I want you to know He is still deeply connected to you. I had somehow lost my way because I didn't feel God being present and I—He didn't seem to hear the cries of my heart, and I felt forgotten. So, I just gave up on Him … is what I did. And what that counseling did is it ignited this little ember of faith that still burned in my heart. It was this ember that took me what we're about to go on, which is a step-by-step journey that gave me the faith, courage and strength to press through my hard season. And remember it, we’re asking, “How do I get through this and that, that, that …?” Second to the last through is what we're going to really focus on because it tells us we're not going to go around the storm, y'all. We aren’t going to turn back and take another path that seems easier to escape the path. And we are certainly not going to plop down in the middle and just give up. We're going to press through step by step.
And so, I thought the best place to begin today is with Moses in chapter 17 of Exodus. And one reason I'm excited to dip our toes into the book of Moses is because it's going to be our next First 5 study, and it's actually one of my favorite books that I actually got to write for this study. But I also chose this chapter because Moses’s response to his circumstances provides godly guidance for our topic of, What does it look like to press through a hard season? And we're joining Moses in this chapter after he'd already freed the Israelites from Egypt and after he parted the Red Sea, of course, with God's help. And what we do is we find him and the Israelites in the middle of the wilderness about to enter into a battle. It's actually their very first battle that they're ever going to fight in the wilderness, and their enemies are called the Amalekites. It's in this battle that God taught me these three beautiful stepping stones of faith that brought them through their battle when I'm sure all they wanted to do—because this army was much larger and more powerful and more well equipped than they were—was to give up, turn back or walk away.
And so, as we walk through these stepping stones, y'all, please listen, and see if you find yourself standing on or near one of these three stones, or maybe you're going to hear God say, “You need to take that first step onto that first stone,” because whether we take that first step or we keep moving on, that's what's going to help us stay the course even if we want to quit. So, let's read our few verses. We're going to be in Exodus chapter 17. If you have a Bible, verses 8-10: “The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men to go out and fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.’ So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.” So, verse 8, the Amalekites had come to attack the Israelites—verse 9—but the rest of verse 8 said Moses then instructed Joshua to handpick soldiers to fight. Then in verse 9, these are the words we're going to—these are—this is our key verse. He spoke these words to Joshua, “Tomorrow, I will stand on top of the hill, with God's staff in my hands.” And then verse 10 tells us that while Joshua fought, Moses, Aaron and Hur went on the hill, and we're going to learn that they were up there praying.
So, let's look at our first stepping stone, which is, Change our position. Though Moses was leading God's people, he didn't like, pick up weapons and fight. He didn't stay in the battle. What we're told is, he left the battle hill, and he went up the hill where he could gain a better view of the battle and a better perspective. Moses changed his position. And it sets an example for us to do the very same when we're overwhelmed by fear, anxiety or doubt, or maybe we're desperate for, for hope or answers from God. Why do we change our position? Because changing our position changes our perspective. You see, it gives us a new lens through which to view our circumstances. It's a fresh perspective. It's quieter there. We can open our Bibles. And we can really read and hear from God and receive Truth, and it's that Truth, that's what's going to help us fight the enemy.
Because Moses was not on the field or in the battle, he was able to look down and see the entire battle, meaning he could see his army, but he could also see the enemy and what the enemy's army was doing, the big picture. He could fix his eyes on God and gain God's perspective. You see, in the worst of my anxiety, really, what I wanted to do was sit with my husband watching Netflix every night to numb the pain that was going on and to avoid thinking about my anxiety. And also, I would be wallowing in my self-pity, because that's what I could so easily sink into. But instead, I made this intentional decision to go upstairs to my room and be with God. So, I changed my position, not just physically, but mentally. And that's what really was important.
And so, I read my Bible, and I mean, every night, I didn't miss it. Most nights, I wrote in these two journals I had, and now you—they're literally tear-stained journals now. I'm not exaggerating, you can see. Nights were always hard for me because it's when my doubts and my anxiety messed with my mind the most. When I went up there, I didn't have an agenda. I literally just read and wrote. But in that writing, you'll see in the next step, I knew that I was beginning to build this armory of verses and truths and promises from God and the stories like Moses. So, our first stepping stone is changing our position because changing our position changes our perspective.
The second stepping stone we're going to see, Moses tells Joshua, “I will stand.” He promised to stand on that hill throughout the battle. And that word stand in Hebrew is natsab. It's natsab, and it means, “to station oneself for a definite purpose.” In Moses’ case, he was to stand still, to stay in one place on top of the hill and watch. Now there are times when God commanded Moses to stand still, get an instruction and move forward. But in this time, it was to be still on top of the hill and watch. Standing by definition requires a readiness, like our feet firmly need to be set. And Moses stood, and sometimes sat—when he got tired with the help of his friends—looking, watching and listening. Because when we stand alert, looking, watching and listening, that's when we're going to be able to hone in and hear God's voice over the world, to sense His presence, so we don't feel so alone, to receive direction.
And really, for those of us who walk with the Lord and have looked to Him in the past and seen Him respond, to remember His faithfulness, I think as Moses stood watching Joshua fight the battle, I'm thinking Moses remembered the past faithfulness of God and how every time they needed Him in Egypt, God made a way when there didn't seem to be a way. Through the years, God had proven to Moses that He was with them and would deliver them no matter how desperate it looked. Like when He literally split the Red Sea in two so they could cross over, or when He brought water from a rock when they had no water to drink. I'm sure Moses also remembered how consistently God fought on behalf of His children.
Right at the beginning of Moses’s journey, before they crossed the Red Sea, He told Moses at Exodus 14:14, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only stand still.” So even if his assignment was different in Exodus 14:14, the promise is the same. The Lord will fight for you; you need only stand still. And I want to tell you listening today, we too are God's children. And because our God is unchanging, the same yesterday and today and forever, we can trust that God will fight for us, and He's watching over us. So, in our hard season, we must stand. And where I came to learn to stand was on my identity as a daughter of the one true God. So, He used that time in my room to remind me of my identity through verses that I'm going to share with you in just a minute. That's what He did while I was standing still. The purpose in that for me was to remind me of my identity.
The words—and why is our identity important when we're suffering through fear or anxiety? Because the words we speak over our hearts and minds truly matter. Because they frame what we believe about ourselves and so, before counseling the words I spoke over myself were these lies: “I'm weak. God isn't faithful. I'm fighting this all alone. Anxiety is consuming me. And I'm never going to have a way out of this. This is how I'm going to live forever.” And these lies framed my reality. And they ensured that I was going to keep, keep living what I believed, and nothing changed till I changed those scripts that I said over and over, and I trained my thoughts to be God's thoughts, replacing lies with the truth that He had been teaching me while I changed my position and was up in my room. Words that reminded me, “I'm a beloved child of God. God loves me and will not leave me. God is faithful, even when I can't see or hear Him, because that is who He is. This battle is not mine; it belongs to the Lord, and I need to trust Him.” These promises, and so many more, if you could see, fill the pages of my journal. Standing and remembering is a key to pressing through because it reminds us, God will make a way even when we feel there doesn't seem to be a way.
And so, after we change our position, after we stand and remember, our last stepping stone is to, Pray with authority. In Exodus 17:9, Moses said he will stand with God's staff in his hand. That staff Moses spoke of is the staff God gave him when he called him to lead the people out of Egypt, and it symbolized his authority and affirmed his legitimacy. Our staff is the Bible. It's our symbol of authority because y'all, the very Word of God sits in its pages. What we hold in our hands, those are God's words, and it's the most powerful weapon we have to carry us through our hard seasons. Ephesians 6 tells us the Word of God is a sword. So, if we walk in the identity as children of God, we have the authority to wield that power, I mean, wield that sword, and then we wield it in the power of the Holy Spirit. And how do we do that? We do it best by praying that Word back to God.
So upstairs in my room, I went back to my Bible, I looked through my journal, and I found those verses on worry and peace that I had already had. But now I began to personalize them, memorize them, and declare them over my heart and mind. So, every time anxiety blew in, no matter where I was, I could declare those in full belief God would be at work. So how did I find them? Y'all? It's so simple. All I did was go to Google and say, “Find verses on peace, anxiety, and worry.” And I'm just going to share two with you so I can show you what it looks like to take the Word and then make your declaration or prayer.
So the first one is Isaiah 26:3: “You,” You being God, “will keep in perfect peace the one who trusts in You, the one whose thoughts are fixed on You.” My declaration: “Thank You, God. I'm already claiming this promise in advance.” Do you see that? “Thank You, God, that You will keep me in perfect peace when I trust in You, when I take my eyes off my circumstances, my anxieties, and fix them on You.”
The second Scripture is John 14:27, that says, “Peace I leave with you.” This is talking to us as His children. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” My declaration once again, I'm already claiming it. “Thank You, Lord, that because You live in me, Your peace lives in me. It's not the world's peace that rises and falls with my level of comfort and my circumstances. Lord, I will not allow my heart to be troubled or afraid. I will trust in You to help me walk in the fullness of Your peace.” These are just two examples.
So, as we've journeyed through, step by step these stones, I want to ask you again: Have you found yourself on or near one of the stones? Or maybe as I've prayed for you, that some of you need to take that first step to change your position. Wherever you are in your hard season, I encourage you and even more, I'm praying these three stepping stones—changing your position, standing, praying with authority—give you the courage to not give up, turn back or walk away, but instead empower you to boldly and confidently press through your hard season.
So right before I close, I want to read a few—I really want to pray God's Word over you. So, if you are somewhere where you can quiet your heart, close your eyes, just receive these words as God speaks them over you through my voice. First, God loves you and will never leave you. He rejoices over you with gladness, quiets you with His love, sings over you. Zephaniah 3:17.
Second, the One who walks with you, He holds you, He hears you and collects your every tear. He is good, and He is faithful. Good even when your circumstances are not, faithful when anxious thoughts press in on every side, good and faithful when darkness invades the light, and it seems there is no way out. Psalm 105.
Third, the battle you fight is not yours alone, my daughter, it belongs to God. He is the Commander of heaven’s armies. Exodus 14:14.
And finally, though during the storm, it may not feel like it and you may not see it, victory is certain when you're a child of God. When you trust in Him, Jesus’ bloodstained cross secures your victory so you can confidently persevere and press through the winds and waves of your hard season. Friend, may these truths and declarations spoken over you today enable you to walk boldly and confidently and fight more fiercely as you press through your perfect storm. Change your position; stand and remember; pray with authority. Know and believe down to the marrow of your bones and the very depths of your soul that whatever enslaves you right now, whatever is holding you hostage, whatever fear threatens, or whatever anxiety consumes you, your good and faithful God is greater still, and begin from a place of victory. Because you have a conquering King walking alongside you step by step by step. His name is Jesus. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One whose name is above all names, and who has all authority in heaven and on earth. His name is Jesus.
Kaley Olson: Wow, Wendy. What a great teaching. Thank you for sharing that. I know I got—I've got a page full of notes. Hannah does, too. I love that for someone sitting in fresh grief or fresh anxiety, you gave them some practical scriptures to look to it and take away. One of the questions that I have, though, is related to a verse that you mentioned in the second point that you made, which was stand, and you alluded to the verse in Exodus where Moses declares to the people of Israel, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” And I, I would love to pick your brain from your biblical knowledge, because I think that there are things that we might take out of context. And so, if someone is reading this, and they read that verse that says, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still,” what are ways that that verse is true in a season? And what are ways that we sometimes take it out of context? Because I know for me—I'm asking the question—does this mean that I need to not do anything at all until the Lord does something? Or is it more of a heart change and being still in quieting? So, can you speak to that?
Wendy Blight: Yes. Because if you'll notice, like at first what I was doing was going in my room and being still when I changed my position, and I wasn't to do anything in that moment, because I couldn't. I just was in a place where I couldn't do anything. All I could do was sit and soak in what God had. And then so I changed that position. I was being still, but I didn't have yet a purpose in all of that. It was like, but when you get to that next one that says, “Be still,” and I added—and remember, I think—and maybe we should say, keep it that way, “Be still and remember,” but I was trying to say that there are times it's okay to be still. But don't, we don't, there is a time you sit there and just absorb because that's all you can do. You are so empty and so broken or so grieving that you can't do any more. And so, God doesn't expect you to do any more. But He does expect you to turn to Him. And then He begins to fill.
And so, in the stillness, you begin to, all that you've poured in, in that first step, will begin to percolate and bubble up in you. So, then you begin—whether it's remembering or whether it's taking a few steps—to move forward. It can be different wherever you are, and I think you just have to know and listen. But it's—I just want to make sure people know that it's okay. Don't feel, don't let people, other people tell you, you should be doing things, you need to get out. Because there are times when you're just not ready, and people have to love you through that and be patient. But then there are times when like you said, yeah, then it's your time to fight back. It's your time to recognize that not everything is Satan's fault. Some of that is our fallen nature that we've put ourselves in a position, so that then we need to address that … and that's another teaching, but when it's something generally that's happened to us that we can't help, then, then there's a time when we need to take those steps forward. We need to move to the next stone. Does that help?
Kaley Olson: Yes, I hope so much. I'm thinking about our Therapy and Theology sessions with Lysa, Jim, and Joel that we all know and love. And Lysa says, there are different responses that we have to trauma in our lives in, which landed you in counseling was the accumulation of a lot of trauma. And we either fight, flight, freeze, or as Lisa says, freak out, but I think like what you're alluding to is that's our, that's our normal human emotion that we're going through. And instead of jumping to that conclusion, I think that Jim says, “Just drink four ounces of water and calm down.” So, there's something that you can do, physically, that you're in control of as you can calm yourself down. But I love that you said like, instead of jumping to whatever that conclusion is that you do is, be still first and let the Lord then direct your, your tendency to fight, flight, freeze, or freak out. Yeah, that was helpful. Hannah, I would love to know what you're thinking.
Hannah Schindler: Yes, Wendy. So, let me ask you, thinking of loved ones who maybe you can identify that they are maybe in a perfect storm right now. And rare circumstances of everything around them is rushing in all at once. How did your family and your loved ones love you? And how did you, how did they love you well? And then how would you tell somebody who maybe is listening and they're saying, “I'm not in that perfect storm, but I know somebody who is. What can I do for them?”
Wendy Blight: Well, I actually can answer the second one well, because I walked it. And if I have a second to just explain, first of all, I had a husband, which is a blessing, who literally cared for me through the whole thing, and I had one or two friends that I told. I didn't tell a lot of people. I just disappeared, because partly, it's shame, partly it's I'm exhausted, and I don't feel like telling this, and then people will check on me all the time. And I'm—this is a long journey, so—I think really finding a friend or a husband or find someone who can walk it with you. You need that. I know Leah DiPascal had walked this journey before and so, I knew right away I could call her because I remember her sharing her story at something for OBS. But here's what happened to me.
Then, not, well, one of my children began to experience this and didn't say anything. But because I've been through it, I observed. And I knew, and I just went and I said, “I know you seem to want to do this by yourself.” But I sat down, and I never revealed to my kids how, what a bad place I was in because one was in college and one was off working. But they knew when they came to visit. I didn't go out with them. I would make a big meal, and everybody could come home. But the thing is, what I did with this one was I sat on the couch. And I just was gut honest. I said, “I never shared this because I didn't want you to see my weakness.” They just wept, and it felt freeing. And I directed them to my counselor, and y'all, four months later, new person. It doesn't always happen that fast. It wasn't that fast for me. But we caught it early. And it's amazing. You can even look at a picture during and after and it was—you can see the new life in someone's eyes. But it comes from, and if you don't have to do counseling, because you can find a friend or someone, there's also so many other resources. Proverbs has resources. We have resources that can help with this. But that's—that's the way it—you just have to go. And if they're not interested, it's okay. If they say, “No, I don't want to talk.” “Okay, just know I'm praying for you.” Send them verses; text them verses; write them a letter. Any way you can encourage them so they know they're not alone.
Kaley Olson: Yeah, yeah. That's such great advice. Thank you so much, again, for coming on the show today. Wendy, this was such a blessing. Before we let you go … Guys, we have a couple of announcements that we want to make. So, Hannah, I think you've got the first one.
Hannah Schindler: I do. And so, I am so excited. Again, Wendy mentioned this during her teaching that our next First 5 study is on the book of Exodus. And so, it starts on April 5, and it's called, “How Do I Get Through This?: Pressing on When You Want To Give Up, Turn Back, or Walk Away.” And so, you can study this with us on the free First 5 mobile app, but we want you to know our teams have worked so hard on pulling together an incredible study guide for you to really dive deep into and make it more personal. Wendy helped write that, and a couple of other of our First 5 writers. And so, you can check that out at our P31 bookstore.
Kaley Olson: Absolutely. And don't forget about those Proverbs 31 Facebook Groups we mentioned at the top of the show. I love, adore, our social media team at Proverbs and seeing, I mean, they have such a heart for getting people connected. And we're a fully online ministry. I mean, COVID has made us even more fully online, and people are desperate for connection, and so we've got a couple of different Facebook Groups that you guys can get connected to online and interact with one another and just be uplifted and encouraged. The links to the groups are in our show notes at Proverbs 31.org/listen, or you can simply visit our Facebook page and click groups to get connected. Well, that's all that we have time for today. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being here with me today. Hannah, I loved having you here at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the truth of God's Word and live out that Truth, it changes everything.