Luke 22:31-32 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”
Not everything can be accomplished quickly. There is an illusion of quick answers, of drive-through solutions. This frustration has turned many of us into watchers rather than warriors. We find ourselves between times of focus and times of floundering. We wonder when we stopped marching, too busy with life’s issues.
Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.
I have found myself existing ‘between the times’ of faithfully writing a weekly Biblical Devotion to rest with excuses and reasons why I gave the devotions up. There have been issues in my family, from age to major medical problems I could point to, but in reality, I found myself living ‘between the times’ of duty and excuses. I faithfully created a weekly Biblical Thought from 2018 to 2023 and began to slow down. I was no longer faithfully writing devotions from my heart to whoever was listening. This decline of obedience slowed me down to living in a world between the passion of ministry and a frustrated observer of time filled with guilt.
Maybe you are living “between the times” of launching a new ministry but wrestling with its unknowns and insecurities. Maybe you are living between an uncomplicated marriage, and now a child is born with its fears, tears, and unknown futures. Perhaps you are at a setback in your life. Pain and frustration have replaced passion. Perhaps you are lost in a time of struggling with faith, God, and desires. You remember the strong and secure times, but now you are “living between” faith and feelings, strength and searching.
I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail.
Repent and turn again to Christ.
I am writing today for the first time in 2025. I am again taking up the challenge of this calling. The first thing I must do is repent to God.
Revelation 2:4-5 ” 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. “
Nothing happens unless we take responsibility for our actions, even if we face valid issues. We must again become warriors and pilgrims, obedient servants who trust God and allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.
Strengthen your brothers
Monuments or Footprints
William Faulkner speaks of the place in our duty to God where we stopped moving forward. That place where you last left your mark can become a monument or a footprint. A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again.’
I encourage you to once again take on the challenge of God’s calling. Break out of living ‘between the times’ of faith and frustration. Join me in repenting for the idle times and let that place I stopped become a footprint of renewed passion, not a monument to where I stopped.
Light-N-side 