When things get hard our initial instinct is to take control, operate on our terms, and desire to just give up. But our lives and our relationship with God is on His terms, not ours.

We must be willing to go anywhere and endure anything for the Father. There is no giving up. Susie points us back to the simple truth a friend shared with her when she was face to face with giving up,

“You don’t get to do that. She said as a Christ follower, we can’t hold conditions out to God. We can’t say  ‘I’ll follow you if…, I’ll endure anything but that.’ Because anything we withhold from God, the Enemy takes it, and occupies it. He steals from us.”

The enemy uses those places of withholding to plant fear in us. When we encounter this deep fear, we often try to outrun it and in doing so we admit defeat. We admit that whatever we fear has power over us so we run.

As Christians we don’t outrun fear, we turn around and we face it head on. Susie’s friend went on to reminder her, and us, of the truth that we often lose sight of in the midst of the storm:

“We overcome fear and then we when we overcome it, we have authority over it.”

We all have these conditions on our faith that we don’t even realize, until they’re tested. What are your conditions of your faith? What are you holding back from God? Your conditions might be placed over your family, marriage, home, or finances.

When we hold things back from God, they become a stumbling to our faith. The only way to eliminate them is to give them up to God.

Susie shares a prayer to offer those stumbling blocks to the Lord’s authority.

 “Nothing is out of bounds for you Lord, I will submit to you and I will find joy if you never heal me.”

Featured Songs: Psalm 23 by Shane and Shane; Better than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant; Who You Say You Are by Shannon Wexelberg

Key Scripture: Job 5:17

Highlight: Fighting through fear

Following God unconditionally