Strong in Time of Need
I'm currently reading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. It's pretty great. If you aren't familiar with it, it is a satirical novel written from the perspective of an assistant to the Devil who is advising his nephew, a demon, on how to torment and distract a person the nephew was tasked to deal with.
Something I read the other day resonated with me earlier today. In a section referring to the irrational and false fears we experience from day-to-day that the Devil wants us to focus our efforts on overcoming instead of resigning our fears to the Lord and trusting Him, C.S. Lewis writes; "For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it;"
I've been praying for strength in an area for many days now. Usually when I pray for strength or wisdom I receive it after no longer than a day. In this case I didn't receive the strength I was seeking even after days of prayer. Today, something came to me - "I haven't received strength in what I've been praying for because it's not what I'm really struggling with. What I'm worried about is a lie and I shouldn't fear it." What I was fearing was a "hypothetical fate."
After that realization I noticed all of the things I have genuinely been receiving strength for this week. It was worry and doubt that got me thinking I was in need of strength in a particular area. But that situation wasn't true. God wasn't going to give me strength to handle something that I wasn't dealing with.
Imagine a person insists they have pneumonia so they go to a doctor and say, "I have pneumonia, doc, I just know it. Treat it, please." The doctor then runs some tests and realizes, "This patient doesn't have pneumonia. They have bronchitis." That doctor is going to treat bronchitis, not pneumonia. Why would the doctor treat something the patient doesn't have? In the same way, why would God give you strength to overcome something you're not going through?
I have received the strength and wisdom I need right now, but it's for what I'm actually going through not what I incorrectly perceive I'm going through.
God's time is different than our time. We have strength in time of need, but it's not in our time or by our time - it's all God's time.
India Arie, "Strength, Courage, and Wisdom"