Tomorrow starts another New Year. We are supposed to be happy about that right? 

For some, we might be looking at it with hope and anticipation of those promises that are unfulfilled-coming to pass. But for some, there is another emotion that is threatening to take you down with it. A feeling of “nothing is going to change, this year is going to be another year of the same, or worse.”

How do I know? I am hearing it myself. This whisper comes out of nowhere to try and bring me down with it. It doesn’t come when I am reading the Word or when I am praying, worshipping, or giving thanks to God. No, it comes only, and pretty faithfully, when my mind shifts and focuses on certain things. When I see a familiar behavior in myself or others that I have been hoping, praying, and believing would have been gone by now.

When I see a place in our life that has not seen a breakthrough and is today the same as it was years ago, or even worse.

The reason we lose our hope and can become disheartened or discouraged is that we have formed a belief that the very thing we are hoping to change has somehow managed to become greater and more powerful than God! More powerful, capable, and bearable to withstand the ever-pressing love of God, pursuit of God, and conviction of God! 

When we look at a person or a thing and see its stubborn ability to remain as is or its inability to be persuaded to change we can start to go down with what we believe is a sinking ship.

If you are looking ahead to the new year with a feeling of anything less than hope in our Living Hope, (1 Peter 1:3) that is, Christ Jesus, then you may have fallen into a focused-on-the-wrong-thing snare. 

Focused on the lack of change you have seen in the past.
Focused on what got worse.
Focused on loss, and the pain that it caused.

Along with that focus can be fear. Fear of hoping again. Fear of putting your hope into something only to be let down again. Fear of “What if this is it? And nothing will ever change?”  So many fears can be part of that sinking ship.

What do we do if this is where we are at today?

Today I started to have a talk with God about those places in my life that seem superglued in place. Unmoveable, unshakeable, and at times overwhelmingly insurmountable. I looked at the time and how long it’s been this way. One thing I came to realize in my talk with God is that I don’t have doubts that He can remove the glue that holds things in place. I have no doubts about His ability. 

What I do question is urgency. I feel like this should have been cleaned up many years ago. But yet, here we are, still in it. Why? Is it because God is not as concerned about how long it is taking as I am? Does He look at where I am STILL at in my life with as much disgust as I do? Or does He look at it with anticipation of all the great teaching opportunities it will bring? All the opportunities this creates for us to grow closer? How these places of struggle are going to help me depend on Him more, grow in faith and trust, and die to myself even more?

While I look back at how many years I’ve still struggled in certain areas and seen no change outwardly, am I missing something far more important? Perhaps how inwardly I grew where it REALLY counted? If I was looking for a cleaner house but got a cleaner spiritual house instead? If I was looking for more financial security but got more spiritual security instead? If I was looking for a healthier body, but got a healthier, stronger, more trusting soul? 

What if all the changes I was looking for in the natural, God used to change me in the spiritual because that was actually far more important to God? And what if those changes were actually needed FIRST so they could then manifest in the natural? What if I was after just the fruit, and God was after uprooting things that were going to steal it? Or planting new roots that would produce what I was looking for? While I was urgent for the now, He was prepared to put in the work that it took to get me there and SUSTAIN me.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10

I have no doubt that the changes I seek, are the same changes God wants for me. But I do think that how those changes come, the timing and urgency are not the same because God understands things I don’t. 

Not all of my will aligns with God’s will, plan, and purpose to USE my struggles for my good. Impatience, fear, worry, doubt, shame, and guilt keep interfering and pressing me to hurry up and get changed already! Worrying that I’m the one holding God back from using me, or that I am going to mess things up so badly that He will have to find someone else to accomplish what He needs accomplished. That is putting way too much emphasis on my superglue’s ability to hold and not enough belief in God’s ability to shake it loose. So, yes, just maybe I do have some struggle there with who is more powerful. My flaws, or God!

When we struggle or see someone else stuck in the same struggle and start to lose faith and hope that it’s going to give way and produce change, we have to let go of that fear, worry, and doubt and trust Him. He knows what He is doing.  His timing is perfect, and He is not intimidated by our urgency. He won’t be persuaded to go against His perfect plans for us, our spouse or our situations simply because we have become desperate.

13 But He is unique and unchangeable, and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does. 14 For He performs what is planned (appointed) for me, And He is mindful of many such things. Job 23 AMP


Look at your urgency and figure out what is behind it.

Do you know that urgency from not getting your needs met can interfere and make you fear that God is not on your side and wants the same things you want? Standers often quit at this stage because they were caught up in urgency, instead of resting in God’s purpose and timing!

Because urgency will bring a message that this has to happen sooner than it really needs to happen because you are struggling through something that would go away if God would just bring the change that is needed. 

The urgency to be secure, loved, accepted, and no longer be apart and missing your spouse. The urgency to no longer live in pain, fear, worry, or financial instability. An urgency that comes when the biological clock is ticking and time is running out to have children or more children. 

So, check the urgency to determine what is driving it and speak the truth of the Word of God to it if that urgency is coming from anything but the Lord. 

There is a really good reason that God’s timing, which appears slow to us, takes place! Because He is accomplishing things FAR greater than we could ever know or fully understand!

“For the vision is yet for the appointed [future] time It hurries toward the goal [of fulfillment]; it will not fail. Even though it delays, wait [patiently] for it, Because it will certainly come; it will not delay. Habakkuk 2:3


The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger

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