Rest & Renewal

After re-reading my post from yesterday, I feel that I need to offer some words of encouragement since the post was very long and heavy. The words in that post were from my heart and I believe they were truth from the Lord, but they were still heavy, and for those of you that are just getting started on this road toward biblical womanhood, they could seem rather daunting. (Heck, I wrote it and as I thought about submission as I was interacting with my husband last night, I felt overwhelmed too.) However, I was reading Colossians 1 this morning and I feel like Paul's words to the Colossians are great words of encouragement and rest and renewal for us women as we wrestle with growing pains. Let me share Colossians 1:9-13: with you:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing much fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

A few points that really stand out to me here are:

1. "... fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding." As we long to be godly women who love Jesus with everything we've got and to use that love to love our husbands and children well, we have to believe that if we pray for it, God will indeed fill us with the knowledge of his will as we pursue His wisdom and gain understanding.
   
   
2. "... that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing much fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God;" When things get tough and we want to surrender to the ways of this world because that road seems easier, we have to remember that our lives should please Him and be worthy of Him (we can only do this with Jesus), and by pursuing godliness and surrendering daily, we'll bear much fruit as we grow in the knowledge of God.
   
   
3. "... being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience," The road to godly womanhood is not easy. God never promises that it would be. But if we pray to be strengthened "with all power according to his glorious might," and we pray for that endurance and patience ... we'll be able to keep moving forward. Endurance and patience seem like just the prescription we need to be able to surrender to the Lord daily and to be able to submit to our husbands for a lifetime, ... on our own, it's impossible!
   
   
4. "... joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." And at the end of the day, or the middle of the day, or at the beginning of the day ... we can JOYFULLY give thanks to the Lord, regardless of our circumstance because He alone has set us free from the bondage of sin through His Son Jesus. And again, even when things seem tough, we have to remember that Satan has no power over us because "he has [already] rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves," Halleluiah!!! I think we're going to find that as we do surrender our lives to Jesus and call others to come along with us, Satan is going to do anything in his power to distract us, and when that happens, we have to realize that spiritual warfare is real and denounce Satan and claim Jesus. He has ALREADY saved us from darkness, we just need to claim it and joyfully thank him for it!

I hope that you're as encouraged by these verses as I am, and I hope that this truth allows you to rest well in the arms of Jesus as he strengthens you and renews you for the task ahead!