Ep 28 | Perseverance

What happens when it feels like everything around you is conspiring to steal your faith? Can you believe again even when the prayer didn't get answered the way you thought?  How do you keep going when the challenges seem insurmountable? 

In this thought-provoking episode, we confront these profound questions head-on. Join us as we delve into the depths of real life issues and discover the resilience required to stand firm in our faith.

In this episode, you'll learn:

1. Practical tips for holding onto your faith when things get tough.
2. Ways to deal with the stuff that makes you doubt and feel down about your beliefs.
3. How leaning on Jesus and trusting in His guidance can give you the strength to persevere through life's difficulties.

✨NEW HERE? ✨ Meet Jemese LaChel Drewery, LCSW, CCTP - Spirit-filled trauma expert and host of A New Creation Podcast. Through Christ-centered conversations and inspiring testimonies, Jemese guides women to healing, deeper faith, and freedom in Jesus Christ. 

🎙 Do you have a faith story to share?   Tap here and be our next guest!

CONNECT WITH JEMESE:
📸 Instagram: @jemeselachel
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🌱 Mentorship: jemeselachel.com

Transcript

Believe Again

Jemese 0:00

How do you not let the pressures of this world and all the millions of things that a woman has on her plate day to day right Like the, the battles that you go through, the suffering that you're going through, all of the things? How do you not let that snuff out your light? How do you not let that overtake you? How do you actually just stand and persevere? If you need help with this, if you need solutions for how to keep moving forward, you don't want to miss this episode.

Jemese 0:39

Welcome to a new creation podcast where we are pointing women towards victory in Christ. One Jesus story at a time. My name is Jimmy Slashel. I'm your host. Let's dive right in Believe again. Someone out there needs to believe again.

Jemese 0:58

It didn't work out the last time. The pregnancy didn't work out, the relationship didn't work out, the job didn't work out. That thing you went out on a limb for and even took this deep, big dive leap of faith. You fell flat on your face. It didn't work out. Can you pick yourself up and believe again? Can you shake the dust off your feet and believe again? What has stolen your faith or broken your heart?

Jemese 1:33

We're going to talk about this today, but before we do. Let's pray Most gracious and holy Father. Lord, we come before you this day. I am praying for the listener, lord. I pray that you would just surround him or her with your wraparound love, that you would meet us in this place of peace, that you would bless me to be your vessel to speak out words of hope and life and encouragement and the very things that you want to be spoken, with nothing added, nothing missing. We thank you, we adore you, we love you and your powerful name, amen. So as I sit down to record this, I am feeling so emotional and that could be in part because I'm still going through so much. As I record this, I am still moving through the grief process of losing my mom back in November, very unexpectedly. My dad has been very sick the last, I guess, four or five months. That's been a lot and at the same time there's this hope in Jesus and that is the struggle, if you want to call it that.

Jemese 2:50

It's the unique thing about being a Christian. We live in this sweet spot, this in-between spot of navigating the realities of this life that we're walking through here, in this fallen world where the Lord Jesus has come to say the kingdom of God is at hand. We live in this spot, our eyes locked on him in his glory and his goodness. Yet we move through these seasons where it does feel like suffering or it does feel very heavy. I've heard people preach that we should not suffer in this life because Jesus came to remove all suffering, and I just don't see it in the Bible, I don't see it in the scriptures, where he tells us that we're not going to suffer. What I do see in the scriptures is that persecutions will come, trials, tribulations, temptations will come, but the Lord will deliver us out of them all. He'll deliver his people out of their troubles. That's what I see, and so we have to learn to navigate that space in a way where the pressures of this world do not steal our faith.

Jemese 4:24

What is it that you're going through that would threaten to steal your faith? It threatens to steal your hope. Perhaps it makes you weary. You have been beating at this thing again and again and again and again. Like an ice pick. You've been picking away at this thing, if you can imagine, even like a boulder. You've been like got a hammer in hand. You are just picking away at this thing, but it doesn't seem to move those things, all your prayers, all of your hopes, all of those things like it doesn't seem to be effective in working. These can be real enemies of our faith if we let them.

Jemese 5:10

When we take our eyes off from Jesus, who told us don't look to the right or to the left, but keep your eyes straight ahead on him, when we, like Peter, step out onto the water, but then you catch wind of the storm and you get more focused on the storm and you start to feel like you're sinking, we have to remember that God is with us, that Jesus is still with us even in those moments. And when that happens, you recognize my God is still here, my God is still with me, he's still right there. You reach out for him, you draw near to him. He draws near to you. He's the only power that can save us, he's the only one who can heal us. And you really almost have to reframe in your own mind. You really have to almost be your own coach, your own life coach in those moments, encouraging yourself, championing for yourself, in those moments that now I'm going to believe with the word of God says yet the storm Wages on. What do you do when the storm Wages on, even if, even when you are doing everything that you can to stay faithful.

Jemese 6:38

I think that we don't talk about this enough. Definitely, as believers and even those who don't know Jesus like this I just feel like we don't talk about it enough and really, if we're going to put a word on it, we're really talking about perseverance, the ability to keep going. I'm a definition scout, so I'm going to look up what perseverance actually means. Perseverance in the Oxford Languages dictionary means persistence in doing something, despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. I always like to go to the Blue Letter Bible and see the biblical definitions of words, so I'm going to go there as well and look up perseverance.

Jemese 7:30

Okay, so in the Hebrew, perseverance means to be adherent, to be devoted or constant to one. It means to be steadfastly attentive to something. It means to give unremitting care to a thing, to continue all the time in a place, to persevere. Not think it's talking about staying power. It's talking about being unremitting. But the thing about perseverance is we don't know how to do that. Without Jesus, we can't persevere in a thing. Without Him, we can't do it in our own strength, because we were never meant to carry the burdens of this world and life on our shoulders. The Lord designed His people that he was the burden bearer. He says come to me, all of you who are weary, laden and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. That's the perseverance you persevere unto Christ.

Jemese 8:33

But how do you do that? Right? How do you actually do that when the storms of this life are beating you down? How do you do that when it feels like everything that you're praying for it's just not working? Or I'll say worse, because we're just keeping it real? You felt like that sometimes, the things that you're praying for somebody else gets your prayer. What do you do with that? You know you're supposed to bless that person and rejoice and all of that kind of thing, but the reality is it's not always easy to do that. That's the Christian log. This is the real life stuff that God wants us to get real about and it's the stuff that I love working with women during our one-on-one sessions as a therapist and a mentor, because you can go into a church atmosphere, you can go into a community of believers and you can talk the talk. But what are you doing in your private time, in the four walls of your house with your loved ones, who get to see who you really are when the pressures of this life are not going to actually doorstep. I'm challenging you to do this, to believe again. I'm challenging you to take your eyes off of what didn't happen, take your eyes off of what went wrong and believe again.

Choosing to Believe Again

Jemese 10:00

Galatians 6, chapter 9, says and let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. How many things have been designed to lose heart. You know what one of our favorite prayers to say as believers is no weapon formed against me shall prosper. Don't you know that there's a weapon formed against you to cause you to lose hearts? What if those circumstances in your life, that thing that didn't break when you said that powerful prayer, that thing that you asked God to remove out of your life but he didn't remove it, that terrible thing that happened, that break up, that child who just you're hurt over how they live in their life, or whatever? The thing is that you've been going into the secret place and asking God about what if that was designed to cause you to lose hearts. You have to tell yourself I'm going to believe again, even though it didn't work this time or last time.

Jemese 11:13

I'm choosing to believe again. Believe what? Believe that God is good, believe that His Word is true, believe that he's still holy. I'm choosing to believe again that since the Lord woke me up to see this day and that His mercies are new every morning. I'm choosing to believe that there's purpose for me. I'm choosing to believe that God is still on the throne in Christ Jesus. I'm choosing to believe that Jesus Christ knows me by name and I'm still safe and protected and loved by Him. You may have to encourage yourself so that you remain on your faith walk. You may have to do that.

Jemese 11:57

One perfect example of this is in the Psalms. David, over and over again in the scriptures, encourages himself. If you look at any of the Psalms, really but I'm looking at Psalm 27, david is encouraging himself through the declarations of his faith, starting with verse one the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. The war may rise against me, and this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will. I seek I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Jemese 12:52

What you're seeing is David pivoting his focus from the problems of his experience and putting his focus squarely on the Lord Jesus and who he is. When we focus on our problems, they amplify. When we focus on the devil and what the devil is doing, that focus amplifies when we focus on King Jesus. We focus on the Holy Spirit, we focus on our Abba Father. This what God amplifies in our life. We exalt Jesus and so we have to learn to use our own language, to use the words of our mouth, to speak life, even into and over ourselves.

Jemese 13:40

I will believe again. I will believe again. The Lord has given you a will. You have a will for that. You can use. You have a will. You have will power. You can choose not to allow your emotions or the experiences of life to tear you apart. You can choose, by your will, to trust God even when it feels like you're being crushed, especially when it feels like you're being crushed. We will go through seasons of crushing and in that crushing is uncomfortable but we get so oily that's how the oil gets made. Through that crushing, the oil starts to drip. Through that crushing you get turned into something so beautiful to Jesus and the experiences and things that we've been through in life. They become a story that we tell, and there's the Lord who perseveres.

Jemese 15:01

I love Psalm 121. Psalm 121, the title, the heading in my Bible says God, the help of those who seek Him, and it reads I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forever more. Do you know what that speaks to? That speaks to security.

Jemese 15:54

All of these things that happen in life. Death, disappointment, discouragement these things can very easily, if you let them, knock you off your block, like knock you off your path. If you let it, when you put your eyes on that and allow it to amplify, that it becomes a predominant voice in your life, it can seem impossible to move forward. It can seem like something designed literally to take you out and you think about something like grief. That's something that I am moving through. How easy it would be to wallow in one's grief. But God is an ever present help. He has always been the one who is supposed to be our security, our protector, our defender, our refuge, our stronghold, our strong tower, the one that we run to, the one who is able to handle our emotions, because he made us. Nobody knows you more intimately than the Lord, god Almighty, who created you.

Jemese 17:17

Turn to Him, believe again, even if it hurts what you've gone through, if it hurts the disappointment. Believe again, pick it up again, do it again, pray again, tell what you've prayed and it didn't seem like anything happened. Pray again, praise him again, do it again, because in due time you will receive your reward. There will be a harvest in due time If you do not lose heart, if you do not lose heart, keep the faith. You have to decide in your heart that you are not going to allow the storms of life to steal your faith. You have to decide it. But you are not going to allow any scheme of Satan to steal from you the promise of God for your life. You have to decide that that's using your will. The Lord gave you willpower. You have to decide to use it. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. You have to do it. Make the decision to believe again. Rise up to who you are in Christ Jesus. Do it again. Step out again. So what? It didn't work last time? Get up and believe again, pray again.

Jemese 19:06

Perseverance I'm reminded of in Romans 5. Romans 5 in the NIV says that we glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Or I like to say it like this the KJV says God's love has been shed abroad in our hearts. God's love has been shed abroad in our hearts through Christ or through the Holy Spirit, god's love has been shed abroad in our hearts. Through the Holy Spirit, understand that everything that you're going through, the Lord doesn't waste any of it. He doesn't need the devil's schemes. You know all the bad things of life. He doesn't need that to produce fruit in you, oh. But he is certainly all powerful to take those bad things that have been designed to tear you down or tear you apart. Or he is all powerful to take those things and turn it for good, to cause you to persevere, to cause your character to grow, to cause you to have hope, and a hope that won't put you to shame. So I encourage you to love again, believe again, pick up your cross and walk again. Keep going.

Jemese 20:41

Don't deny your emotions. If it hurts, it hurts. Don't deny that. Maybe you're even angry. If you're mad, you're mad. We don't want to talk about anger, but if you're mad, you're mad. You know we don't do any favors by denying that we are angry about something. It's not giving the devil a foothold. You know what gives the devil a foothold when you lie, when you lie about how you feel, when you try to spiritually bypass. I just learned that phrase actually comes from a Buddhist psychology. That's not even a Christian term spiritual bypass. We weren't designed to function that way. We were not designed to function in such a way that we're not keeping an absolute hundred with God.

Jemese 21:38

He wants you to keep it real with Him. He doesn't want you to lie and say that you're not, to say that you're not mad or that you're not suffering or that you aren't battling lust. That's the devil, that's the enemy trying to keep you stuck exactly where you are Because you feel like it's inappropriate or un-Christian or ungodly or unbiblical to confess those things. You're confession of those things. That's the invitation for the Lord to step in and do His wonder-working power. Your denial of those things, like they're not going on, it's like slamming the door shut when Jesus is knocking at that door and saying Honey, won't you give this to me, I'll carry you, just give this to me. We have to confess that kind of stuff.

Jemese 22:32

I don't know what you're listening to this podcast for, like why the Lord had sent you. I just know that, if you're listening to this podcast, that the Lord wants to minister something to you specifically through this word Get real with Him about what you're feeling. Get real with your therapist. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to God. Cry out to Him, lament. You don't know how to do that.

Jemese 23:07

Use Psalm 13 as a template, voice your complaints, and then you go into radical praise. Lord, I will praise you anyways, I will trust you anyways, I will believe again anyways, I will step out in faith anyways, I will go on again anyways. This is how you, this is how you wage your warfare, this is how you win. You don't let the waves of life, the storms of life, take you out. Instead, you take it straight to the master. You take all of those things straight to the Lord, god Almighty. He will lift you, he will deliver you, he will save you, he will keep you, he will bless you. He is your God, he's a good, good father. Believe again, father.

Jemese 24:14

I pray right now for the listener who feels stuck in despair, stuck in darkness. In the name of Jesus, I command the hold. That darkness has to be loosed. Now, in the name of Jesus, I break the bonds of darkness by the power of the cross and the blood of Jesus and that powerful name Break now. In the name of Jesus, father, I lift this listener, this one, oh God, and I ask you, lord Jesus, to pour out your spirit and greater measure. I ask you, lord Jesus, to rescue this one. I ask you, Lord Jesus, to reveal yourself strong and true and mighty to this one. I ask you, lord Jesus, to send laborers into the harvest running after this one. Strengthen this one, oh God, heal this one. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray Amen.

Jemese 25:35

I want to thank you for listening to this podcast. If you need help and you want to work one-on-one with a Christian mentor, or if you're in the state of Missouri and you want to work with a Christian counselor, go to graceabidesco. I book a consultation. I will leave a link in the show notes so that you can do that and maybe we can have one a 15 minute call and see how to get you some individualized support. In the meantime, I just want to thank you for tuning in and I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you until we meet again.