Renewing Strength

Christian, when you overcome some especially difficult or even tenacious enemy, some sin that has taken you at will over and over again, or some awful weight that has dragged at your heals for years, you may for a time find yourself feeling unmoored, disconnected, aimless, or even empty. Perhaps even broken in some way. This is only a feeling, and a temporary feeling at that. It’s not unlike the feeling of “spent-ness” one feels in the sickbed near the end of a long convalescence. Strength returns. Life returns. Those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength. This is a promise, as certain as the dawn, no matter how much time may pass. If you, as a Believer, keep your way pure, not returning to that which you have overcome, your strength in the LORD will return in time, and you will stand victorious, wiser, stronger, and more resolute than ever. Your self-confidence will be greater, perhaps, but be careful about that: your self-confidence might be what got you in a jam to begin with. Keep no confidence whatsoever in the flesh. Don’t say to yourself, “I can handle this,” when “this” overcame you a hundred times in the past. Moths burn up in the flames they hover around. They don’t survive the fire they play with. Neither will you if allow yourself to hover around the corpse of that which you’ve beaten. Linger near it and it will surely come to life again and take hold of you. But move on from it and your strength will certainly come again. It’s not “if”. It’s “when”.