Why Do We Live So Defeated?

Happy Saturday!

I wanted to quickly share a change in schedule. Instead of hitting your inbox every week, this newsletter will now only be coming to you every other week—that way I have some more time to study things out and give God (and you) my best.

So now it will be every other Saturday at 9am!

For this past week, a question has been circulating in the back of my mind:

Why do we live so defeated?

Why do we live crippled by shame, fear, and bondage? Why are we stuck in pits of despair—finding ourselves spiritually, physically, mentally, relationally, and financially broke and broken?

This is the reality for a lot of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, but I can confidently say that God doesn’t want us living defeated…I don’t think we really want to either!

If we were to take a trip down memory lane to a middle school science project, there would be two variables that we would have been studying:

In other words, the dependent variable is affected by the independent variable.

Now we aren’t in science class (and thankfully so, I averaged D’s in science throughout school) nor are we science experiments. But here’s what we can take away from this:

Just as a dependent variable responds to an independent variable (something outside of its control), so we respond to our past experiences and environments.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we are products of our past and we have been consciously and unconsciously shaped by we’ve gone through.

But if we’re not careful, we can build prisons around ourselves that keep us from moving forward in life, and more importantly, keep us from moving forward in Christ.

Breaking free from these metaphorical prisons we find ourselves in isn’t something we can do on our own.

We need God’s help.

But we also need to understand that we aren’t passive participants in this process. We have to take the steps we need to take as God begins to move.

When we look to temporary things to make us “better,” it’s like we’re slapping a tiny bandage on a large wound and calling it “fixed.”

But I want to encourage you with this:

We don’t need to be fixed—we need to be transformed.

The verse starts off by saying, “Do not be conformed to this world.”

Conform means to fashion yourself to something, to match it, to adapt to fit into a mold.

Scripture says we are not to be molded, fit in with, or fashioned to worldly and fleshly thoughts, character, and behavior.

Then it says, “But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The word transform in Greek is metamorphoō, and it means to change into another form or transfigure (which means to make more beautiful.)

To renew is to renovate, to restore—to make a complete change for the better.

Note that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Transformation always takes place on the inside before its effect is produced on the outside.

And lastly, the verse ends by saying, “That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Just as the lies of the enemy have unfortunately shaped us in the past, so it is with the truth of God’s Word.

As our minds are transformed and renewed by the power of His Word and the help of godly counsel, we are able to see and understand what aligns with God’s will and desires for us and what doesn’t.

Our lives are not our own, it’s not about us, and when we begin to understand that, we’re able to look beyond our prisons, beyond our defeat, and see the Truth of God all around us.

While God can cause transformation in us in seconds, He often does it in time through Christ’s sanctifying work in us.

Patience and faith are built that way.

However, transformation and the renewing of our minds requires some things of us.

Firstly, it requires that we come to a holy resolve.

To resolve is to make a firm decision about something.

One of the best decisions you can make second to believing in Christ is to wholeheartedly believe what He says in His Word.

We have to come to a place where we stop going back and forth in believing scripture.

The Word of God is not dependent on how we feel. It’s the truth regardless of how we feel or the situations we find ourselves in.

I encourage you to make a decision to trust His Word and live like you do even when you have your doubts.

Allow your faith to increase and watch what God will do in and through you.

Secondly, we must have a desire and a willingness to lean in.

The reality is you can have desire and no will.

Desire is the presence of want, while will is the presence of determination and commitment.

Your desire must be backed by your will.

Would God help us to desire and will to be free in Him.

Walking in freedom seems like a no-brainer, but there are perks to our prisons and benefits to our bondage.

The prisons we find ourselves in may be mighty, but we serve a mightier God who is able to shake the foundations and tear it all down. And when He does, we have to ask ourselves this:

Are we going to stay and stand among the rubble or are we going to step out of it and follow God into everything He wants to do?

We have a decision to make: We can submit to sanctification as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling or we can stay in our prisons for the rest of our lives.

We started with the question: Why do we live so defeated?

But now I’d like to reframe it.

Why do we live so defeated? —> How can we live victorious?

Living victorious isn’t about how much money we make, how successful we are, the empires we build, or the degrees and awards we get.

It’s about knowing, loving, and walking actively with the One who created us. To know the Victor, Christ, is to be victorious no matter what happens or what we face.

Teaching from the way the Lord has given it to me, to live victorious is to understand and walk wisely in three key things:

The truth is that we are always growing, but the trajectory to which we grow can either be good (bearing good fruit) or bad (bearing bad fruit).

At the root of the fruit we bear is identity—an understanding of who God is and who we are in Him.

We can try to create our own identities for ourselves, but it’s foolish to do so because we didn’t create ourselves.

Who are we to say who we are?

Fabricated identities are always changing as mankind searches for the meaning of our existence, but an identity rooted in Christ will never change—because God never changes.

We talked about it a little last week and we’ll go deeper in the months to come.

But what we need to understand about purpose is that is not something to be chased.

Purpose should flow out of identity—not the other way around.

When identity flows out of purpose, we become robotic, focused more on doing than on being.

It’s at the level of being where we develop a deeper relationship with God and others and everything we do should flow out of that.

Purpose doesn’t change.

Purpose is exercised through stewardship.

Stewardship speaks to our management of what God has entrusted us with.

The levels or magnitude of things entrusted to our care can change based on how well we manage those things.

Oftentimes we want to do more or have more, but we don’t want to take care of what we have now.

And then there are ways in which the Kingdom of God operates, that if we operated in such ways, we wouldn’t have some of the stewardship problems that we do have.

My heart isn’t to puff us up.

My heart isn’t to try to make us better versions of ourselves so we can become prideful and rely more on ourselves.

My heart isn’t to make this life about us—because it isn’t.

BUT my heart IS to see you (and myself) live free in Christ.

And it is to see you and I thrive in being who God created us to be and using what He’s given us.

And lastly, my heart is to see us walk fully surrendered in everything God has for us.

All for His glory.

That being said, we’re going to be studying this out strategically in the following months as the Lord helps me figure out what that looks like.

You may already have a deep understanding of some of the things we’ll talk about, but my hope and prayer is that your faith would be shored up as we go and that this would draw you even closer to God.

Hope this blessed you.

Hannah