5 Biblical Truths to Remember in a Tough Season

Sometimes life gets tough.  Money is tight. Relationships crack. Emotions run high. What do you do when the storms of life are ragging? You remind yourself of the truth. You may not feel it. You may not see it. But in the middle of the storm it's imperative that we put our anchor on the truth. In this episode I talk about one scripture that holds five key truths to remember in a difficult season. 

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life. And I do use that word rebuild.

I know I say this every time, but I'm using the word rebuild specifically, because we are designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life.

And like I said, I know I say this every time, but just in case somebody is tuning in for the first time, I want to make sure you know you're in the right place. What does starting over in the middle of your life feel like?

For me, that felt like a divorce after a 20 year marriage. And for my sister, it felt like the very unexpected death of her spouse. For you, it could be a completely different circumstance that leads you to that point.

And while those two examples are completely different, I'm not trying to compare them in terms of grief or trauma or whatever.

The commonality that I'm getting at is in both instances, all my plans, all my hopes, all my dreams for the future went up in smoke. The same thing happened for my sister.

Everything that we thought our life was going to look like, the carefully planned map of where we were going to go and how we were going to get there, that went up in smoke, and the rug got pulled out from under our feet, and our day-to-day life

looked totally different. And if that's you, the first thing I want to say from the bottom of my heart is I'm so sorry. I do know how overwhelming and just horrible that feels.

But I'm here to offer hope, I'm here to offer encouragement, because so many women have done this, okay?

Lots and lots of women have gone before you, they've had something happen in the middle of their life that totally threw them for a loop, but they've come out on the other side better for it.

So we're not gonna gatekeep, we're not gonna keep secrets, we're not gonna say we've got some secrets, so we're gonna share, okay?

Because you are not alone, you're actually in the right place, and we're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna grow together, all right? So welcome, I'm so glad you're here. Let's get down to today's episode.

Now, just a brief recap, if you'll remember, in the beginning, I said I focused on five areas when I rebuilt my life, my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, and growth and goals.

And I said each podcast would fall under one of those categories. So today, we're gonna talk about spiritual health. I feel like that is vital, it's the first one for a reason.

Spiritual health really, really matters, especially when you're in a dark season. And so today, what we're gonna talk about is five key truths to remember when you're in a dark season, okay?

And what I am so excited to share with you today is my very favorite scripture verse, and it's just five phrases. In this scripture verse, I found in early adulthood, and I memorized it, and I just loved it.

It's not one of the ones that's quoted all the time. You don't see it framed on bracelets or written on t-shirts. It's not one of the super common ones, but it has meant so much to me, and it has such great truths.

And when I went through my dark season, and I was going through this divorce, and it felt like everything in my life had changed, these truths kept me anchored.

And I think it's really, really, really important that we have anchors when we're in a storm, when we're going through a difficult emotional time.

Just to hold on to a truth is vital to remind us because all the emotions and all the things kind of blow about, right? And it's really easy to get off course.

But when you have an anchor, you have a touch point, you go back to it and you say, I know this is true. I may not feel it. My emotions may not be there with me.

My circumstances feel off. But I remember, I know this is true. A song can do that.

A scripture can do that. Several things can do that. But I'm going to share with you today, these five truths that are found in one scripture verse that is my favorite, and I think speak to us so clearly when we're in a dark season.

Okay, so I memorized this, and I would speak this over myself. This is my absolute favorite verse. It is Zephaniah 317.

So Zephaniah is a minor prophet, so it's in the Old Testament. It's very easy to skip over. There are only three chapters in the whole book.

So it's a really small little book in the Bible. And I will say that I have noticed that this particular translation in the NIV has been updated. I think in the 2000 and teens, it got updated.

I'm still using the Bible that I've had since the 90s. And so I'm reading that translation. I believe if you pull it up now, it reads differently.

But this one is so simple and easy. It's just five bullet point truths in one scripture reference. And I think it is beautiful.

So I'm going to read the scripture to you, and then we're going to break down the five truths, okay? This is Zephaniah 3.17, and it says, The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

I love that. I love that. I love that.

Every piece of that I love. So let's break it down.

When you're in a dark season, when the world is changing around you, when you thought it was going to be one way, and it's totally different, why this particular verse just can speak to you in a really, really, really dark season. Okay?

So let's break it down. Five key truths. Truth number one, the Lord, your God is with you.

When you're going through a really dark season, it's easy to feel alone. I felt alone. I was, I had people around me.

I went to work every day. Lots of people there. I lived in my house with two children.

I had two kids. So I never was alone, but I felt really lonely. So I think when everything kind of changes in your life, sometimes your relationships change, everything shifts.

Oftentimes, it's easy to feel alone. And I just want to speak the truth to you. The Bible says, the Lord your God is with you.

That means you're not alone. And we can feel like we're alone. I understand that.

I empathize with that 110 percent. But we've got to remind ourselves of the truth.

And in the middle of everything, when you go in topsy-turvy in your life, in the middle of feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next, I want you to remember the truth. You are not alone. The Lord your God is with you.

And that sometimes doesn't feel like enough. I know, I remember trying to tell myself, God is with me. And sometimes, it just, I wanted somebody to put their arms around me and hug me.

I wanted a physical contact. And I understand that. And I want that for you too.

However, emotions and feelings can play tricks on us and are in our mind and in our heart. And even though we feel so lonely and abandoned, and it feels bad to feel alone, I want you to hold on to the truth that you are not alone.

The Lord, your God, is with you. That is just so important to remember in the middle of a difficult season. You are not alone.

God is right there beside you. Even if you don't feel like it, even if you don't see it in the moment, even if your feelings and your emotions are telling you 10 other things, hold on to the truth, okay? Truth isn't affected by emotions.

Emotions are going to be affected by all kinds of things, but the truth remains the truth. And this is what the Bible says. The Lord, your God, is with you.

Okay? So what's the next thing? This scripture says that I just love so much.

The Lord, your God, is with you, so therefore you're not alone. The second truth, he is mighty to save. Oh, my word, how great is that?

So you're going through a really difficult time. The storm is raging. There's a huge mountain in front of you that you don't know how you're gonna climb.

So not only the first truth, you are not alone. Second truth, God is mighty to save you. So in the middle of the pit of despair that you're in, and trust me, I have been in a pit of despair.

So I am not marginalizing that at all. It's a real place to be. But God is mighty to save.

He is big enough, he's strong enough, he's mighty enough to get you out of that situation, to get you through. He is mighty to save.

So not only are you not alone, the person who is with you is God, the creator of heaven and earth, and he can fix this problem. He's mighty to.

Now, please understand, the way you want the problem to be fixed, and the way God wants the problem to be fixed may be different.

So just a brief example, I was reminded of this when I heard a sermon earlier this week, and I think it fits here exactly. When the Israelites got freed from Egyptian slavery, and they started to leave, and God took them a different way.

He didn't take them the straight way, right? And what happened? They came upon the Red Sea.

It was like they got blocked. Like this road is closed, you can't go any further, and the Egyptians were barreling behind them, and this isn't the way that they would have planned their escape. This isn't what they thought looked like salvation.

This didn't look like the path that they would have chosen. I don't know if anybody in that big group of people would have seen that this was going to be the path to their victory, to their salvation, okay? But what happened?

God parted the Red Sea. And it was this beautiful miracle. So sometimes we think the path to our salvation, to get us through this difficult time we have in our head, what we think the path looks like.

And sometimes God says, well, actually, I'm going to reroute you this really crazy way, and you're not going to understand it. But then it'll be like, oh, okay. That makes sense.

Hindsight is 2020. God knows best. God is mighty to save.

You are not alone. God is with you. And he is mighty to move on your behalf, to make things happen for you, to do what you can't do on your own, to move that mountain, to get you out of that pit of despair.

He is mighty to save. Just understand that he may have a different path to getting you through this than what you think. You think, I would get from point A to point B this way.

And God may reroute you a completely different way than what you expect. And we have to trust that, okay? Because parting the Red Sea was the perfect plan.

Because then the Egyptian army got, the water came over and crushed them, and the Egyptian army wasn't able to follow them. If they had gone the traditional path, that wouldn't have worked, right?

And then they would have had to face the Egyptian army. As God planned it, it wasn't the way they would have planned it. It felt like they were hitting a complete dead end, like we can't go any further, here's the sea.

But God got them across and then dealt with the Egyptian army, so they would no longer be pursued. And God's plan is so different from ours sometimes. So God is mighty to save.

It may be a different path than you expect, but the scripture says, the Bible says, God is with you, and he is mighty to save.

So as you are going through a season of change and transition, as everything feels topsy-turvy and upset, remind yourself of the truth, that God is mighty to save you, whether it's financially, whether it's emotionally and relationally, whether it's

physically, whatever is going on, the Bible says, the true word of God says, he is mighty to save, okay? So in the middle of the dark, in the middle of the storm, you got to hold on to the truth, you are not alone, and God is mighty to save, okay?

Third truth in this amazing scripture is, he will take great delight in you. You're not alone, he's mighty to save, and he takes great delight in you. This, to me, is like water on a dry spot.

Why do I say that? Because sometimes when somebody comes to rescue you, they almost roll their eyes like, I came and picked you up, but it kind of put me out, right?

Like we've been there, like somebody's come and helped us, but it definitely put them out. God delights in you. He wants to be with you.

And maybe it was just me, and the relationship that I came out of, I felt very rejected, very unwanted. And the fact that God delights in me, like he wants to be with me, like it makes him happy.

You think of the word delight, you think of a smile, and the anticipation, like I want to be with this person. So God is not only just with you, so you're not alone. He's not only able to save you from the situation you're in.

He wants to, he loves you, he delights in you. He likes you. Have you ever heard somebody say, I love them, but I don't like them?

And there are sometimes that you can love somebody, but you really struggle to like them. And I've heard that phrase before. That's not the case with God.

Don't ascribe that human condition that sometimes we talk about to God. God likes you. He delights in you.

Like, if you delight in somebody, you want to spend time with them. You want to be with them. You're excited to see them and spend time.

So God is saying, you're not alone. I'm here with you. I can save you, and I am happy to be here.

This is a truth, and it doesn't feel that way. When I was going through my divorce, and I felt so rejected, and so alone, and so abandoned, and tossed aside, I had to remind myself I wasn't alone. And God actually wanted to be there.

He actually wanted to save me. He actually wanted it. It made him happy.

He delighted me. And I didn't feel those things. So I understand if you don't feel like that.

But like we said, feelings are not facts. Emotions can lead you astray. The truth is the Word of God.

And the Word of God says that He takes great delight in you. Okay? So hold on to that truth.

Hold on. You are not alone. Hold on.

God is mighty to save you. Hold on to the fact that He takes great delight in you.

And in a season where it feels like you've been abandoned, and you've been rejected, and everybody's kind of moved on and forgotten, there is somebody, not just somebody, the creator of the universe. God delights in you.

He looks forward to seeing you and spending time with you. He wants to be with you. He wants to be there.

And that is so powerful and so needed when you're in a dark season. OK, what's the fourth truth? Oh, this was beautiful.

He will quiet you with his love. Oh, I love that. So so what does it mean for God to quiet you with his love?

The closest example I can come up with is when I was a young mother, and my children were little, if they like fell and scraped their knee, and they would get really upset, right? Have you ever been around a child that has had an accident like that?

Like they've scraped their knee. They maybe saw a couple of drops of blood. They're upset.

They're crying. They're just big emotions, right? And as a mother, you scoop them up, and you try to embrace them as big as you can.

Like if you were a bird with feathers, you would just cover them, right? You embrace them, and you speak to them, and you try to calm them down because you love them so much. And what do you know as a mother in that particular situation?

That while this hurts, while this is an upsetting thing, everything's going to be okay. Like this didn't derail their life, this didn't derail the plans that I have for them. It's upsetting, it is painful, and it was surprising probably.

But I know in my heart of hearts that they're going to be okay, that it's all right. And so I can quiet them with my love. I can project all the peace that I can muster, and all the calmness, because I know that it's going to be okay, right?

Because I'm the mom, and I've seen situations like this before, and even though I know it's upsetting, and it's painful, that it's going to be okay. And I think of God like that. God wants to quiet me with his love.

So something has happened, and it's upsetting, and it's painful, and I didn't expect it, and I am just, wah!

And the fact that God would come over me like that, and just quiet me with his love, in that same way, like, he knows that overall, it's going to be okay. He's not upset by it, because he knows I'm going to be okay.

He knows that my life, it's going to be okay. And that calm reassurance is a beautiful thing. And I just want you to know that God knows that you're going to be okay.

And sometimes, when we know that somebody else believes we're going to be okay, that's way easier than convincing ourselves we're going to be okay, just like a child.

And the way you handle it when they get hurt or injured, if you act like it's okay, they tend to act more like it's okay. If you react big, they react big.

And just know that God is there in all his calmness and all his peace, and he's saying, it's going to be okay. I'm quieting you with my love. I'm giving you calm and gentle reassurance.

It's going to be okay. And I just think I need that. Thank you, God.

I do need that. I need someone to tell me it's going to be okay. I need somebody to quiet me with their love.

I'm in the middle of this dark, chaotic season. I've got all these emotions swirling around me. I feel so upset.

All these demands, there's financial demands, and I got to get the kids back and forth to school, and I got to pick them up for this, and I got to do that, and I've got work, and I've got this, and I've got that, and there's a thousand things pulling

at me. And I'm weary, and I'm so sad that life didn't work out the way I wanted to. And God is just sitting there saying, I love you, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.

I know it stings. I know it hurts, but it's going to be okay. Let me quiet you with my love.

What a beautiful truth. In the middle of a really dark season, He will quiet you with His love. I mean, that's not just conjecture on my part.

The Word of God promises that. It says that. He will quiet you with His love.

And if you don't feel that, you hold on to that and say, God, Your Word said, you would quiet me with your love. I need that right now. Please, in this moment, this is what I need.

You've got to hold on to the truth, even when you don't feel like them. All right. So we have five great truths.

Let's just go back over them. So we'll remember, number one, the Lord your God is with you. Number two, He is mighty to save.

Number three, He will take great delight in you. Number four, He will quiet you with His love. And then last, but certainly not least, number five, He will rejoice over you with singing over you.

That phrase has captured my imagination in ways that you don't even know. I've written a book about it called Song of the King, because the idea that God would sing over us, God sings over you. He rejoices over you.

When do we sing over each other in common culture today? I don't know what it was like to 4,000 years ago when this was written, when Zephaniah was talking about this. I don't know if it was common to sing over people.

The examples that come to mind when we sing over somebody is when a parent sings a lullaby to a child.

And I just read this article about the psychological evidence, the research that has been done, about how powerful it is to actually sing over a child. Like, it really matters. Like, they've done studies, they've done research.

It is profound what it means to sing. It soothes the emotions in a different way than just speaking. The repetitive nature of a song is so powerful.

When else do we sing over somebody in today's culture? What does that look like? Well, the only other thing I can think of is when we sing happy birthday to somebody, right?

Because we're rejoicing over them, we're celebrating them, and we sing happy birthday to you, right? And we sing that song over them. And that is a joyous, happy thing.

It's a way of bringing honor and celebration to the person that we're singing over, right? God is rejoicing over you. God sees things that you don't see.

He knows things that you don't know. And he is so delighted in you. And he loves you so much.

And he is rejoicing over you to the point that he breaks out in the song, that he sings. And he knows that it soothes you, and he knows that it can encourage you. And his song changes for different seasons and different situations.

But I'm telling you, the word of God says, He loves you so much, he sings over you. He literally sings over you. And I am in awe.

I am humbled by the thought that the creator of the universe would thanks that much of me, that he would delight in me, that he would rejoice over me, to the point that he sings. Like, we don't sing over people that often. Like, what in the world?

That God loves you so much, he cannot contain it. He has to sing over you. Like, whoa, that just, that just puts it on a whole different level.

And it's not conjecture. It's not me just trying to make up pretty imagery. This is the word of God.

This is Zephaniah 3.17. And when you're in a dark season, and you're in the pit of despair, you are not alone. God is mighty to save and get you out of it.

He's not upset that he came. He's delighting and he is happy to be there. He's ready to calm you down and quiet you with his love.

And he is so happy to be by your side in the middle of your storm that he sings over you. What an amazing scripture to hold on to during a dark time. This was an anchor for me.

I'm not even gonna lie. I found it in, like I said, early adulthood. So I was in my very early 20s when I found this scripture, and I just thought, that is amazing.

Like, that is my new favorite scripture. And I have held on to it my whole life. I've always loved it and quoted it, and I memorized it.

But when I just went through this really, really hard time, it just became this mantra that I would repeat to myself. God is with me. I'm not alone.

He is mighty to save. He can get me out of this. I don't see the way out, but he can get me out of this.

He delights in me. He wants to be here. He's going to quiet me with his love.

He's going to sing over me. And I didn't feel it, but I held on to it because I knew it was true. Because the word of God says it, and what the word of God says is true, and I held on to it until I felt it.

And today, I'm encouraging you to hold on to this truth, even if you don't feel like it, even if it feels completely so foreign. Feelings aren't facts. Hold on to the truth.

Hold on to the word of God. The anchor holds. I promise the anchor holds.

Okay? I'm so glad you joined me today. If you would like to reach out, I would love to hear from you.

You can find me online, www.workingonamazing.com. There's a comment forum. You can drop me a line.

I would be happy to respond. You can also find me on social media. I'm on a lot of the platforms, but I do hang out on Facebook the most.

And you can send me a message on Messenger or wherever, however you want to there. You can write on the wall, Working on Amazing. It's a Facebook page.

I would love to hear from you. And just connect and hear what you're going through. And how you're handling it, all right?

Thank you for joining me today. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.