Have you ever felt like your whole life was falling apart right before your very eyes and no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t do anything to stop it? That the very ones you thought would stand beside you forever turned and walked away? That in each passing day a wave of hopelessness flooded your heart and clouded your mind, inching you closer and closer to simply giving up? That just the thought of facing one more day filled your heart with pain and fear? If you have ever felt this way before, just know that you are not alone. I have been there too.

Only just recently I have come through one of the most difficult times in my walk with the Lord. I am not a quitter. I never have been. Those that have known me for years know that about me. I’m a fighter. But I too have felt like giving up and waving the white flag of defeat.

I was reading yesterday the story about the 14th Century Emperor Tamerlane who was badly defeated in battle. He made his escape from the battle, and as he lay hidden in a barn, enemy troops scoured the countryside looking for him. He was depressed, his troops had been sorely defeated and scattered, and he didn’t know what he was going to do. Suddenly he noticed an ant trying to push a kernel of corn that was much bigger than he was, up over a wall. As he watched this ant attempt to do the impossible, he counted the ants futile efforts to see how many times he would try until he gave up. One, two, three… twenty… forty… sixty-nine times the ant tried and failed to push the kernel over the wall. But in one last push, on the seventieth try, the ant made it. Leaping to his feet, Tamerlane excitedly said to the ant, “If you can do it, I can too.” That day he changed his outlook, reorganized his forces, went back and soundly defeated the enemy.

Just like that ant pushing the kernel of corn, I am pushing the impossible up over the wall. Living with Multiple Sclerosis, I get interesting responses from people as to why I am not healed and how I need to try a little harder. I have been approached by people with “fixes” for the struggle I face. Everything from “you need more faith” to “have you heard about this new diet that worked for my great aunt’s second cousin’s friend.” Regardless of the response, people need to understand that just because someone is living with a chronic illness or going through a difficult trial, doesn’t mean they are living in sin or lacking faith or not trying with everything within them to push through. We have to be careful with our judgements. Job’s friends got caught up in that very thing and were proven wrong.

What most people don’t realize is that we have not been guaranteed perfect health in this life. We haven’t even been guaranteed a perfect life. As a matter of fact, we have been told to expect trials and persecutions and struggles. But one thing we have been guaranteed is perfect peace. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.”

I face each new day with excitement and expectancy… and in peace. How can I say that? Because I walk in a peace that only Yahweh can give. I wake up excited to see a new day because I know I will be a living testimony of the Father’s goodness even through my weakness. I go to work excited because I know I will be used to bring a message of truth to a lost and dying world. I go to bed at night excited because I know I didn’t give up and because I simply made it through another day.

I have learned that some things in life have no answers, and we have to be okay with that. We will never have complete understanding as to why the Creator of the universe does what He does. We only know in part while we are here (I Corinthians 13:9)… so that means there is a part we don’t know. Why don’t we, instead of acting like we know the answers to life’s difficult questions and instead of deciding to speak out of our unknowing, simply tell people we don’t know and chose to pray instead. Are we okay with not knowing? Better yet, can we lay our pride aside and admit that we don’t know? Yahweh is a big God, and He doesn’t have to explain His reasons and purposes for the trials we face. After all, His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. I have a feeling that even if He did explain His purposes, we would either argue with Him as to why the struggle isn’t needed or we would fail to understand the full scope of His plan and want to make our own alterations and adjustments along the way.

Many of you have given in and allowed your circumstances and the pain or fear in your life to stop your purpose. You have allowed the enemy to hinder you from fulfilling your destiny. You have taken a seat on the road of life and allowed the enemy to convince you that you can’t move forward. You have given in to the fear and determined that you simply can’t push that kernel of corn over the wall.

It’s time to get up and face your fears. Your destiny is waiting. You can’t stop trying. You can’t stop pushing that kernel of corn. You can’t give up on your future. The enemy would like nothing more than to paralyze you and stop the Father from using you to your fullest potential. Don’t give him that satisfaction. Face the very thing that is holding you back and allow it to become a testimony to the world of just what Yahweh can do.