The pressure of everyday life, the problems, the feeling of being helpless, that everything you do is wrong or that nothing works out in your favor ends up draining your strength. You don’t know where else to turn. It seems like you keep reaching a dead end all the time. It seems like nobody cares and that your problems are worse than other people’s problems. No one knows. No one sees. No one cares.
Tearful and upset, feeling like you’re the worst person on earth, dragging yourself through the mud, you truly expecting that at least God will be merciful and that He will have pity on you. You play a beautiful song and hope God puts you on His lap and hides you from this world so there is no more pain. You are feeling weak, tired and remember the passage where He invites the weary and burdened to go to Him and He will give them rest. However, what can they expect after coming to Him? What is the message of God to the weak? Is God going to take pity on them? Is He going to cry with them? Is He going to agree that their problems are the worst? Are they really a victim?
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am strong”. Joel 3.10
This is a message from God.
In other words, “Okay, you came to Me. I will give you rest. Until today, you have planted and reaped, you have taken care of your garden and wounded yourself on the thorns. But from now on, you will become a soldier. Out there, my son, there’s a war happening. Turn your work tools into weapons, because we are in this world in a war against hell. There is no time to cry, grieve or play the victim. Now you are with Me. You don’t need to worry about anything else, but you must fight. In the heat of battle, you don’t feel pain. Develop your talents, your skills and use them in battle. Be strong.”
God is not going to make you feel strong. The weak are still weak, even when they feel strong. The weak stop being weak when they decide to be strong. They assume their strength when they assume their position in the army. Our battle is not against people, but for people, against the spirit of unrighteousness that has dominated this world. Our battle is spiritual. Our strength comes from within, regardless of our physical strength or external conditions. When the weak decide to be strong, no one can stop them. No one is able to stop them. No one can destroy them. Everything he is within will eventually reflect on the outside. He stops losing. He is no longer at the end of the line. But, first, he had to change within. He had to decide to be strong. He had to stop crying and feeling useless, forge his weapons and go to battle.
I am strong when I decide to be strong. I am strong when I understand that there is a battlefield in my mind and I have the Lord Almighty as my ally. I decide to obey, forge my weapons and move forward. The battle has been declared and to win is not an option, it’s a matter of honor.