Hey, struggling Christian, did you know that God has no unfinished paintings on His wall? He finishes what He starts, invisibly, imperceptibly, relentlessly.

To be sure, walking faithfully with God through the days, months, years, decades, can often be a murky business.

Ask any soldier under fire in a foxhole, “how’s the war going?” and he’ll respond, “I haven’t got a clue, I’m just trying to stay alive.” 

All he can see is the messy, muddy, bloody mess in front of him. But he knows that somewhere out of the fray, generals are poring over maps, planning strategy and plotting the way to victory.

Your job is to remain faithful to your call and trust the chain of command.

The Bullets Are Real

It is the same in the spiritual realm. We, too, are at war and the bullets are real.

As written in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

And God isn’t going to open the heavens and reveal His grand plan for each of us individually. He is looking for our heartfelt faithfulness TO HIM, not to His plan.

Salvation is an intensely personal business. But fear not, in time we’ll learn more and more of His ways and love Him all the more, as explained in 1 Corinthians 13:11-13:

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

God Is at Work in You

The Apostle Paul, who was no stranger to chaos, confusion and peril, wrote in Philippians 1:6; 2:12-13:

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.”

We weren’t created for OUR good pleasure, but HIS good pleasure. But it’s all worth it, dear Saint!

Again, Paul encourages us in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Would you board an airliner that had never been tested before? Would you trust it to survive the myriads of potential stresses that might be placed upon it?

Would you rest easy if you knew the air crew had never flown a plane like yours, and were still feeling their way through?

Similarly, God is forming His children into iron saints, and that takes time and testing, as written in 1 Peter 1:6-8:

“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory …”

So, what’s the problem?

In a word, YOU. Your plans, the parts of your life that remain un-surrendered.

Imagine if soldiers in combat were allowed to “make it up as they go along?” Suppose they ran in a thousand directions according to their own whims?

That’s what we Christians are doing when we carry on our lives as though God doesn’t exist. That’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, oblivious to the bigger picture all around us.

How About You?

Would you like to get out of that rut you’re in? Would you like your life to sparkle with the supernatural?

That old saying, “Let go and let God,” comes to mind. But you must get out of the way and let Him do it.

Your biggest impediment to true spiritual growth is YOU.