How the gospel intersects with the real struggles you face

You can listen to this post any time and especially on those days when you’re wondering how the power of the gospel intersects with the real struggles you face.

This post is for anyone who feels the weight of “should’s” and obligation, whose thoughts can sometimes spiral downward to sadness, and who is frustrated that she just can’t get it together. This post is for the woman who prefers fixing a problem to resting, who lives in fear of failing, and who works really hard at obeying.

If others see you as capable, competent, and a go-getter, but you know that you’re on the verge of falling apart, you’re in the right place.

If you’d like to listen to me read words of grace and blessing over you, just go here. You can also click the play button below.

If you’d like to read the transcript, well, keep on reading!

So my husband Ryan and I love Band of Brothers, a TV show that follows the battles and friendships of Easy Company in the 101st airborne unit in World War II.

In one episode, a unit is led by a completely inept leader – Captain Dike -, who’s inaction and indecisiveness cause his soldiers to be pinned down so they’re basically sitting ducks. German bullets buzz all around. Men get hit.

Then in comes Lieutenant Speirs from battle command. He relieves Captain Dike from his post and leads the men to safety. His job is to take care of his unit. But Speirs sees the bigger picture: the platoon is scattered all over the town of Foy. So what does he do? Speirs runs from platoon to platoon reuniting men so they can effectively fight the Germans together.

The Nazis are so surprised by his bravery they don’t even shoot at him. Speirs single-handedly connected an entire team of men at the risk of his own life.

Sweet friend, I love the heroism of this story. I love that there are people in this world who would risk their life to save others. But no matter how great this true story is, there is a far better and greater story that Jesus lived 2,000 years ago.

The greater story starts when God hears your cries.

Let’s dig into this incredible story as we look at Psalm 18, which is a song David wrote after God delivered him from the brutality of King Saul.

Here’s what David says in verses 4 thru 6 (TPT):

“For when the ropes of death wrapped around me
and terrifying torrents of destruction overwhelmed me,
taking me to death’s door, to doom’s domain,
I cried out to you in my distress, the delivering God,
and from your temple-throne you heard my troubled cry.
My sobs came right into your heart
and you turned your face to rescue me.”

Now most of us don’t have a physical enemy trying to kill us, but we all have the enemy of sin, that heart condition that affects each and every one of us. Sin separates us from God and demands a payment we have no ability to pay.

In addition to sin, you have other enemies that weigh you down and wear you out. Perhaps your enemy is:

• Fear
• Jealousy
• Perfectionism
• People-pleasing
• An obsession with task
• Or obsession with your body and how it should look, but doesn’t

Perhaps your enemy is:

• Your thoughts that are mean and cruel and untrue, and cause you to spiral downward
• A drive to do All The Things
• A desperate need to hold it all together
• Unreasonable expectations
• Or all the “should’s” or obligations that you heap on yourself or others expect from you.

No matter what your enemy, all these troubles from our one enemy, satan, who has been messing with us since the beginning of time.

Y’all your enemy is big, strong, and hateful. Your enemy comes to steal your joy, kill your hope, and destroy your dreams.

Your enemy uses tactics like:

• Guilt
• Condemnation
• Noise
• Busyness
• Temptation
• And isolation

He wants you guilty that you’re not doing enough. He’ll whisper condemning phrases that you’re a bad mom and how someone else can do it better. Your enemy can be found in the buzz of entertainment and news, and an overcrowded calendar. He’ll tempt you with lies that God’s holding out on you and doesn’t see your needs. He’ll tell you that everyone else has life all figured out so it’d just be better to not share a struggle.

The enemy leaves you feeling restless, distracted, pressured, and shaken.

In my life, the enemy gets to me through my work. He likes to whisper that I have nothing of value to say, that no one reads my words anyway, and that I should go ahead and give up. I hear these words and check my blog stats and find a scrap of evidence that supports his claims. And I just want to give up.

Sweet friend, where does the enemy get to you? What area of your life is under attack?

When you follow Jesus, you are under attack so it’s no wonder that you cry out for relief and rescue. You cry out because you are a sinner in need of a Savior. You cry out because you need to be saved from your own thoughts, expectations, and emotions.

You cry, and the crazy part is, that the God of the universe hears you. Just like David said, “My sobs came right into your heart and you turned your face to rescue me.” Your sobs – the sobs of Amy, Jennifer, and Christina – are heard by the God who created you and knows the number of hairs on your head.

But God didn’t just hear your cries. God acted on them to rescue you.

Here’s what David writes in Psalm 18: 7, 9, 10, 13, 16 & 17:

“The earth itself shivered and shook.
It reeled and rocked before him.
As the mountains trembled, they melted away!
For God’s anger was kindled, burning on my behalf.
He stretched heaven’s curtain open and came to my defense.
Swiftly he rode to earth as the stormy sky was lowered.
He rode a chariot of thunderclouds amidst thick darkness,
a cherub his steed as he swooped down,
soaring on the wings of Spirit-wind.
The Lord thundered, the great God above every god
spoke with his thunder-voice from the skies.
What fearsome hailstones and flashes of fire were before him!
He then reached down from heaven,
all the way from the sky to the sea.
He reached down into my darkness to rescue me!
He took me out of my calamity and chaos
and drew me to himself,
taking me from the depths of my despair!
Even though I was helpless in the hands
of my hateful, strong enemy,
you were good to deliver me.”

Oh friend! When you think about that, how crazy and incredible and awe-inspiring is this rescue story. THE rescue story of all stories that includes YOU.

God gets angry when you – His precious daughter – are surrounded by evil that hurts and oppresses your heart. And in His anger and out of love for you, He left heaven. He rode to earth. He thundered. And when God spoke, hailstones and fire went from Him. He reached down, pulled you out of the mess, and brought you close to His heart.

God, YOUR God, heard you. He moved on your behalf and He did all the work to save you. To save us. To save His family of daughters, sons, heirs, and saints.

Sweet friend, salvation does not depend on you. Your eternal relationship with God is solely dependent on Him and what He did on the cross. You do not have to earn God’s love or prove your worth. You don’t have to obey perfectly or say certain words. Your salvation is dependent solely on Christ’s complete and finished work. All you and I get to do is accept and believe what is already true, and has already been done on our behalf.

Bible Study Fellowship says this, “Salvation is possible only because God is willing to do the work for us.”

And yet… as try-hard girls, we have a hard time believing that anything is free. That we don’t have to perform. That love and worth aren’t earned.

But friend, these are lies from the devil who wants to rob you of experiencing joy, hope, grace, and love from God Himself.

Your salvation is secure. No one can pluck you from God’s hand. And out of His riches, He gives you grace upon grace.

God gives you grace and He delights in you.

David writes this in Psalm 18:18 and 19,

“When I was at my weakest, my enemies attacked—
but the Lord held on to me.
His love broke open the way
and he brought me into a beautiful broad place.
He rescued me—because his delight is in me!

So friend, you know that at your weakest, when you felt most surrounded, you cried out. God heard you. And He rescued you. And now what does He do?

God does one action and feels one feeling.

God actively brings you to a beautiful broad place.

That means that God gives you all the freedom and opportunity in the world to live out your dreams, interests, and talents. It means you don’t have to conform to others or live in a box of “shoulds.”

It means that you get to live out what God uniquely and purposefully placed in you. Living in this beautifully broad place means using your divine gifts and living an abundant life. This life allows you to embrace the good works pre-destined for you to do because your plan doesn’t have to be everyone else’s plan. To live in a broad place, you embrace who you most fully are.

Your calling— your unique dreams, quirks, ideas, and talents— is your homing device to Christ. When you pay attention to what’s pulling you home, you’re relaxed, at peace, and well in your soul. Living in a broad place looks like discovering who God created you to be and then becoming her.

And what emotion does David write about?

God delights in you.

Sweet friend, God is just crazy about you. He created and designed with that dimple, those cheek bones, the thighs that touch when you walk, those eyelashes that flutter.

Will you look full in His wonderful face and listen to Him sing over you so loudly that it drowns out your inner critic? Do you see the grace and love for you in His eyes? He loves you, every part of you: heart, soul, mind, and body.

He delights in you so much that He will never leave you or forsake you. Not once. Not ever.

You are God’s most amazing creation (Genesis 1:27). And you, yes, you are His absolute favorite (Romans 12:3–5).

There is not a moment He isn’t thinking about you or a minute that He’s not working on your behalf.

He delights in you so much that He gives you rest when you want a system.

He gives you grace when you want a checklist.

He gives you His nearness when you want an action plan.

Jesus is always ready to lavish you with His love, to wash you in His sea of grace, and to speak truth over you that you are His and He is yours.

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