Journey to the Cross

Pause

What’s standing in the way between you and feeling fine?

What’s squeezing you in its grip, refusing to let go?

What’s staring you down, telling you to give up?

Opposition = the force that works against you. And it’s not always a cartoon character bad guy, is it?

It could be a hurt you can’t release. A person you can’t forgive. A habit you can’t shake. Those people who never believed in you. That voice in your head that tells you you’re nothing.

What if you listened for a different voice instead?

A voice that whispered the truth?

Listen

I have asked one thing from the Lord— it’s all I seek: to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, seeing the Lord’s beauty and constantly adoring his temple. Because he will shelter me in his own dwelling during troubling times; he will hide me in a secret place in his own tent; he will set me up high, safe on a rock.

Psalm 27:4-5

Think

One of the hardest things about opposition – whether it’s people against you, your own anxiety or insecurity, or a sense of spiritual battle – is the feeling that you’re alone. When you hit roadblock after roadblock and prayers go unanswered, sometimes you feel like you belong nowhere.

The psalmist here gets it. “I’m at the end of my rope, God! But here’s the one thing I can count on: you are my home.” Read these words aloud: house, shelter, dwelling, secret place, tent, safe on a rock.

Such images promise a place of refuge, no matter what’s holding you back. Can you write those words on paper, praying for God to be those things to you now? Though the pain of isolation runs deep, this beautiful truth reaches deeper: that even in the midst of the trial, you have a home in God.

I like to picture a little house inside my heart, where Jesus lives. It helps me hold my head high and my heart open.

Cari Pattison

Pray

One thing I ask of you
This is what I seek
That I may dwell in your house
Feel your pleasure wash over me

One thing I ask of you
This is what I need
That I may hide in your hands
Feel your presence fall over me

And I am confident of this one thing
That my eyes will be blessed
When they gaze upon your beauty
And my lips will be sweet
When they whisper words of praise
And my heart will be dancing
When it knows that you are with me
And I will see your goodness
In the land of the living

Amen

from “Land of the Living” by Waterdeep (1999)

Go

Thus sayeth the Lord:

No weapon formed against you shall prosper.

No weapon of defeat,

No weapon of self-doubt,

No weapon of fear or rejection or jealousy or rage.

No thing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

So be strong in the Lord and in the power of God’s might:

‘Cause nothing can stop your journey now.