I Don’t Have the Strength to Go On

Where do you find the strength to keep going? When hearts fail, a powerful tool lies close at hand… the precious jewel of future grace.

I don’t have the strength to go on…

How many times has this utterance breezed past your lips? How often has the heart conveyed the heaviness upon your soul being? 

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At the starting block, every cell on edge as you await the beginning of the race.

It rings out, and what was once staid yet anticipatory is moving forward, cruising down the path to the end, the one place you aim to be when this is all done.

Minute upon minute upon step upon mile…you soon find you don’t feel the way you did before the body changed from stationary.

Your heart, your lungs, your legs, all come to cry out, “Stop! Simply, I must stop!”

Whether physical, emotional, mental, relational…we all have our breaking points.

If you’ve hung around here long enough, you’ve spied my own words, telltale past…time and again has this been my heart’s moan.

Time and again have I crept under bedsheets in the eve, feeling the weight of weakness.

Time and again have I awakened to morning light, wondering how to carry on another day.

A New Story to Tell

There existed a period not so long ago, where a different kind of pain entered my reality, one keenly physical in nature.

The time was amassed with much confusion. Surrounding the birth of my fourth, I was met by a whole host of bewildering symptoms. …

First, it started with sleepless nights.

Many.

18 months worth.

I always sleep like a baby after birthing a baby and I was eager for those days following his birth, but oh how I was sorely mistaken…

I didn’t slumber for 48 hours straight after his entrance into the world.

Roll on top of that severe neck and back pain,
then shooting pain in my forearms leading to my hands and wrists bound so as to not use them and exacerbate the pain,
leading to surgery,
veins throbbing and uncomforted by compression or heat,
leading to more surgery,
freakish scary pain rolling up and down my back,
the formation of 20 or so unbearable trigger points in my neck and back,
then unexplainable pain all over my body, literally from my scalp to the bottoms of my feet,
uncontrollable muscle tensing and twitching,
difficulty mustering strength to walk stairs or the power to even keep my eyes open, inability to process foods and gain weight, leaving me at a mind boggling 91 lbs. 

All on top of the sleepless nights, mind you.

For the full story click here. 

But I was a mess. I had definitely reached my threshold of having the strength to make it even one more day. 

Regardless whether you have a story quite as drastic as mine is no matter, for we all come to the same familiar spot just in our regular everyday grind where our hearts cry out that we cannot budge another inch.

The blessed news is that we don’t have to simply mutter, I don’t have the strength to go on. Our strength is found in an extraordinary benefit we’ve been given. Our strength is found in future grace.

The Faulty Things to Which We Turn

So many things we can try to make our refuge during the struggle…

Our Own Logic

Despite my highly creative and intuitive slant, I’m also tremendously logical. Bestow to me a compendium of problems, my brain will endeavor to solve and reason out each one to the tiniest detail.

Honestly, it’s probably an outcome of my HSP gifting, being so detail-oriented and aware of subtleties. I can even gather a seemingly impossible conclusion and somehow reason out how it could work and benefit.

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Your mind will always find a way to make them true [godless messages in your head], unless you ‘call to mind’ something greater. God is the God of the impossible. Reasoning your way out of an impossible situation is not as effective as reminding yourself that God does impossible things.

– John Piper, The Ministry of Reminding-Myself

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When faced with difficult decisions or situations, remind yourself of a greater being who has the power to give you what you could never ascertain yourself. 

Our Own Abilities

If we’re honest with ourselves, we can humbly admit we are made of flesh and filled with limitations.

We don’t hold the mental power to keep going day after day.

Emotions turn raw in its seasons and we’re helpless to muster the strength to always be the upbeat go getter or the steady rock.

Physically, we’re that runner that shoots steadily the first several miles, but eventually feels the weakened legs, pounding heart seeming to burst, knees threatening a buckle, and blistered feet chafing unbearably.

We simply cannot endure unendingly.

Gritting our teeth and shoring up to barrel on ahead may carry us for a time…but it will not endure the test of time. 

Yet, though we’ve suffered this truth repeatedly, we find ourselves stumbling on the track, still contending to just

try harder

do better

push forward.

Such results in burnout.

Other People

Those blessed friends in our lives, oftentimes there for us when we hit hard and tumble –

people are meant to be our encouragers, ones who faithfully stand by our side and aide us when we fall (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Proverbs 27:17)…

but they are not our saviors.

They cannot truly meet our deepest longings to be known and loved and supported as we desire.

They cannot impart to us the strength we so desperately need. 

Amidst a sea of runners in the race of life, are we keeping our eyes set on the right goal?

As our feet pound pavement and we’re pushing forward with sun and sweat and every muscle aching to press just a might faster, if we glance to our dear loves in the stands, though they may cheer us on, such will only slow us down in reaching the prize we’re really aiming for. 

When we find ourselves running immediately to our friends before running to our Creator and Founder of faith, we need to view our support team and reassess on whom we’re trying to lean first and foremost.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.  
-Hebrews 12:1-2 [emphasis mine]

Strength is found in Future Grace

Future grace.

Sounds lovely – but what is it?

Succinctly put, future grace is the grace God has reserved for you in the future.

And it’s the grace that’s being imparted to you now, moment by moment, and moving into the next moment.

It never stops.

It never ends.

It doesn’t even have times of hesitation.

Just an ever-flowing Niagara Falls of grace being poured out, rushing overhead and raining down.

Here’s the simply lovely part. This unending rolling of Niagara Falls masterpiece (3,160 tons of water per second!), a picture of the fantastic grace that cascades into your own life, is a practical source of reliance and strength to you in those I simply can’t go on moments. 

When you’re 

~ burdened with a large important task at hand…future grace will give you the means to fulfill the undertaking (Isaiah 41:10)

~ worried about provision…future grace says there will be something to carry you through in just the right moment (Matthew 6:25-34)

~ uncertain of how something is going to end…future grace says Trust, I have the plan (Job 42:2)

~ unsure of what decision to make…future grace will illuminate the proper course at the perfect time (Psalm 32:7-11)

~ unconvinced of how to work out a conflict/problem…future grace will give you the right words at the right time (Luke 12:12)

~ wondering what will become of my child, spouse, friend, parent…and what will i do? future grace reminds any good work He starts will be completed (Philippians 1:6)

~ rolling in the doldrums of life, either exhausted in the daily or bored with the mundane…future grace states it will provide the means to make it through (Acts 17:28) 

~ like me, wondering how you’ll manage the pain…future grace will help us to bear and promises a glory coming that cannot compare to our current sufferings (Romans 8:18)

~ scared about tomorrow, future grace says, I am your rock and your refuge. I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Psalm 18:2, Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:6)

You are not alone in your task.

You shouldn’t feel like the grace for tomorrow is here now. It will only come at just the right time. That perfect amount of grace for that precise moment.

On top of this, future grace even reaches into the past. It existed in your past and has already surmounted its glorious working for you there. Looking back on our past and seeing His hand with 20/20 spectacles now gives us confidence to trust the future grace here and waiting ahead.

God working in our every moment –

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

– 1 Corinthians 15:10

God gives us grace for every task –

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

– 2 Corinthians 9:8

Portrait of a Life Lived by Future Grace

The beauty of the life lived by perfect grace isn’t a perfect life. It’s one fraught with the toil of walking a journey amidst the broken. It’s not always pretty and it doesn’t always feel good. Yet even in our toil, we travel the aching path and we change.

We blossom.

We butterfly.

And the impossible becomes possible.

When you’re unsure how that stumble and fall in the race of life will resolve…

savor the truth that you’ll be given guidance to navigate it to the finish line

pressure to be the manager of your life falls instead.

When you’re faced with unwanted circumstance…

savor the truth that the pieces will place themselves at the right time

peace itself reigns. carefreeness is king.

When you refuse to worry about how you’re going to carry on today or tomorrow…

savor the truth that you’ll receive what you need in each today or tomorrow moment 

your anxiety and burdens are carried for you.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
-Matthew 11:28-30 [emphasis mine]

His ways are different than our own.

When we learn to follow the course of future grace, the gravity of a million burdens lift and we get the easy yoke in return.

And our race to the finish line is ever the sweeter.

*This truth of future grace was not something I discovered on my own. The great pastor, teacher, and author John Piper started to unfold the amazing beauty of future grace over 30 years ago. I attribute much of what I’ve learned from his writings and preachings (and first gathered the Niagara Falls imagery from him, as well). You can read more on his explanation of future grace here.