Tag Archives: strength

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Hope Gives Way To Strength

Sometimes crazy gets the breakthrough.

When you’ve been waiting and believing and trusting for a miracle, some days can just drain you. You might wake up thinking, ‘This is going to be the day’! The evening comes and you return with nothing more than the weight of requests unanswered and an exhausted spirit.hope, strength, trishakeehn.com

I want you to know that it’s okay to still get loud about these miracles. Your worship can turn the tide of the battle in your favor.

This kind of praise confuses the enemy because you haven’t received your miracle yet but here you are praising and shouting and lifting up the name of the only one who can turn your situation around.

The enemy wants to mute your praise because the currency of the miraculous is in your mouth. How loud would you get if your miracle was on the other side of your praises?

Get desperate about your requests when doubt creeps in. When you are so low that you feel you can’t get any lower and there’s no reason for you to believe that God is going to do anything about it…

Lift your voice. Hope will rise on the inside.

Hope when it doesn’t make sense. Hope in the midst of fear. Hope when the situation gets worse because hope gives way to strength. The Lord didn’t bring you this far to leave you. There’s a miracle with your name on it.

It’s time to get loud for your ‘all of a sudden…’ Your miracle is right behind you.

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Strength of a Woman

eleanor roosevelt quote, trishakeehn.com, teabag, strength, women

Hell hath no fury like a kingdom woman disturbed. She won’t stop doing all she can until she makes the devil regret ever messing with her. This explosion of strength and inner resolve could put many men to shame.

Yet, this same woman of grace is equipped with insight, sensitivity and spiritual beauty to temper steam with some self control. Behind every great man, is an even greater woman.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, the collection of us ought to be able to turn it right side up again. ‪#‎kingdomwoman‬

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Strength through the struggle

trishakeehn.com, be immovable, 1 Corinthians

Do you ever wake up in the morning and feel like you’re already surrounded by problems and pressures that are left over from the night before?

 

You may be overwhelmed with needs, uncertainty, hurt, burdens, to-do lists and regrets and you haven’t even thrown back the covers yet.

 

What if the strength you’re searching for is in you already and you just can’t see it yet?

 

As long as your focus stays fixated on the issues and obstacles, you’ll miss the opportunity to let courage control your thoughts.

 

The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, has already gone before every one of your battles and equipped you with armor you’ll need for the attacks coming.

 

And He’s bracing you from behind too. He’s got your back.

 

Your struggle is less about your own maturity and more about what you believe.

 

Your help is here. Your supply is here. Your strength is here.

 

Can you see it?

 

Though you’re tired by all the trouble, close your eyes and rub the seeds of doubt and disbelief from the corners of your mind. Now look again. Let your gaze fall upon the hills, where your help is mounted up and surrounding the very things that surround you.

 

It would be nice if God’s help was to keep us from hardships and prevent the problems from ever happening in the first place. But let’s be honest. As long as you strain hard enough, your success will point to your own efforts.

 

Pride tells us we have all the power and strength and there is no purpose for faith or trusting in a God we can’t see. Yet, the scriptures are stacked with stories rooted in human weakness, soaked in the supernatural strength of God.

trishakeehn.com, pain, compassion, hope

Allow your problems to humble you, refine you, and use you more effectively. The places where we are pressed can most likely be where God wants us to plant hope. Compassion permeates from our pain.

 

You have a Defender who will deliver you with the very thing the devil meant to destroy you. When the enemy has a strategy to take you out, God always has a plan to keep you in and moving forward.

 

Let God pummel the enemy by bringing so much good from the bad that Satan will regret ever having taken you to that wilderness in the first place.

 

God wants to show you His faithfulness through your failures and strengthen you through the struggles.

 

But you may have to see it through your weakness.

 

So look again! There is potential in your problems and purpose through your pain. You can have confidence in the chaos and confusion. God downpours a great supply in the drought of your need.

 

You can’t control the circumstance but you can believe in a Father who loves you… still. In the darkest of hours, He is the supply of strength standing on a ground of grace.

 

Keep trusting. He’s already given you all you need.

 

It’s our faith that activates God’s power. If you’ve been standing and believing for a while, don’t give up! Press through. Keep praying. Keep asking. Keep seeking, and He’ll meet your faith with favor and His miraculous power.

 

Often times we’re surprised by our struggles. We can even be caught off guard when it’s the same stuff we’ve been wrestling with for so long. We give the enemy credit for being clever when he throws the same punch to our weak spots. Why?

 

What if we weren’t surprised?

 

What if we really did come to expect these kinds of ordeals, not as pessimists but as the prepared?

 

What if we did come to expect that life was going to push us with pressure?

 

What if we were ready in advance for things like temptation and oppression?

 

Plant your feet solid and bend your knees to brace your body for the impact, because I’m warning you from the Word, its coming. If you’re not prepared when the push comes, you will be shoved into a sinkhole of despair.

 

Let us not be prepared for only the pressures but also for the divine power.

 

Although we feel alone in our afflictions, I’m here to remind you we’re all in this together. As the persecutions mount and the pressures pound, remember God has already given us victory through Jesus. None of these struggles and trouble will be wasted. They will all work out for our good. We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us (Romans 8:37). Our perseverance will be rewarded (Hebrews 10:35)trishakeehn.com, be immovable, 1 Corinthians 15:58

 

Therefore, my dear [friend], be… immovable” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

 

I pray that God opens your eyes so that you may see the strength that is already in you. Keep an open and humble heart so that His peace can help you press through to pain and find its purpose and His plan.

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Breaking through and not breaking down

When God has a breakthrough for us, the devil brings a breakdown. The more faith you live with, the more fear the enemy stirs up.

Essentially, the enemy releases resistance to hold you back, but God uses that resistance to strengthen the heart muscle for an increase. When you are met with push back, this is the time to push through the burn and work that faith muscle to exhaustion.

Hold out your hope! Rest is around the corner.

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’ Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

Exercise doesn’t evoke excitement from many people. But we push through to build endurance. We burn out muscles til tiny tears break into the deeper fibers of our strength, and repair themselves when we rest. This is what produces results! Here’s where we see the increase.

Here’s another truth about breakthroughs: You can’t live out today on yesterday’s faith.

As your strength increases, so must the weight of resistance and level of endurance. As you stretch those muscles to reach new goals today, it will require heavier lifting and longer distances to see the benefit and growth tomorrow.

Yesterday’s routines won’t work on what’s required of you today.

You may need the edge of additional experience or education. Perhaps it’s an increase in peace or  prayer. Maybe it’s more like-minded relationships or intentional living.

If you’re ready for the rise, it’s time to press into the pain and prepare for a gain.

Here’s a final story I want to share with you.

Last week, I woke up the morning of an important meeting that would circle the completion of a book I’m writing. Locking up my house before dawn even broke the horizon, I stood stunned in shock. It appeared as if a violent storm took place within the confines of my car. invitationsOpening the driver side door, I noticed a mess in my passenger seat; a scattering of invitations to church that once sat neatly in the console.

Is it strange my heart smiled with compassion at this?

It reminded me that God meets us all no matter where we’re at or how deep we’re in it. We could be making a mess of a situation and He’s there in it, reaching out to invite us back to Him.

Naturally, my hope is that one of these invitations to church made it into the burglar’s bag of my belongings and in this moment is nudging him/her from a nightstand. Not because I care about getting my stuff back (although the RayBans would be nice), but moreso that a hurting heart who felt there was nowhere else to turn that night would find Jesus is all he/she ever needed.

Maybe your heart is breaking over a lost dream or relationship… God is meeting you there. Maybe you are breaking through… He is on the other side waiting on you.

Lean into the resistance to see results. Whatever you’re facing, just remember a showdown with the devil is God’s opportunity to show off; He is the one and only, great I AM.

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The Risky Right Thing

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” That’s from Theodore Roosevelt.

Have you ever heard Roosevelt’s story before He moved into the White House?

His bride died after giving birth to their daughter… just hours after his mother, who lived in the same house, died of typhoid fever.

Historians say Roosevelt wrote a large ‘X’ over February 14, 1884 in his diary and then penned, “The light has gone out of my life.”

Though this pain wore at his heart for a season, I think it may have actually fueled his strength to persevere in unexpected circumstances.

Twelve years later, in 1898, Roosevelt was elected governor, and in 1900 vice president, and then upon McKinley’s assassination in 1901, at forty-two years old Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president of the United States.

Be encouraged in your struggles and pain today that God has given you the ability to overcome. Do something with the choice you have. And if your decision brings even more hardship, step back and start again.

riskyThe more mistakes you make means the more chances you took. A life of chances is what creates courage to carry out success.

Take chances in your career.

Get ridiculously risky with love.

Embrace vulnerability and expose the raw truth.

Strength for future favor can come from your circumstance if you press through the pain and persevere.

Allow the unexpected to fuel a life without regrets. Do something.

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. 2 Thessalonians 3:5

…because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:3