Nostalgia hits all of us. You may long for a time when you were surrounded by close friends and miss having relationships of the same level in your current life. You may remember fondly the time when your ministry or business first started and you woke up running and couldn’t wait to seize the day. Then time happened and changes happened and you find yourself in a place where you can describe yesterday more vividly than your tomorrows.

You may not know it, but you are actually in a place of growth where the foundation of yesterday’s faith has put you in a perfect place to take the vision higher. This is not a season to coil back but to increase your focus. Instead of living in yesterday’s glory or staring frozen at current obstacles, ask yourself if you finished what God set you out to do. Don’t settle for less. This is not a time for self pity but the greatest test for a leader to emerge as the one still standing and still leading. The story isn’t over yet so choose to write an ending worthy of the great God we serve. We were not created to burn out or to tire out but to proclaim with victory like Jesus did when He cried out “It is finished.” Perhaps finishing means not letting yourself chase the next vision before finishing the first or daydreaming of new visions because the current one is too hard.  Perhaps finishing means removing encumbrances in both your relationships and in your own bad habits that are preventing you from running like the wind to own the last leg of the race. Ask yourself which path will require greater faith? Then choose the path of most resistance because you are sure it is the path God has chosen like when Jesus set His eyes like flint towards Jerusalem. The resistance may be from those around you or from external circumstances but don’t let there be resistance from within you. Jesus was not conflicted on the inside.

In my life, God showed me how to get through my hardest trials by re framing the story as the victory song He wanted. And in His will my choices are settled. Then the only thing left to do is to trust God to move the mountains as we live out His perfect will for our lives.

When I pray for you I “hear” a victory song. I believe in you because I believe in the power of God’s truths in you as you put His truths into action.

Love from Anita Carman