Today’s 333 Devotional: “Commitment Helps in Crises”

Commitment is the second phase in the transformational process brought out in God’s wrestling match with Jacob.

It’s where we refuse to let go. If we give up, then we’ll miss the blessing.

The Lord said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)

Obviously, God could have rendered Jacob into a little grease spot. God could have overpowered Jacob with no problem. So why did God let the struggle go on?

When God allows a crisis, He doesn’t solve it right away. He lets it go for a while to see if we’re really serious about change.

If God answered every prayer immediately, we’d say, “Yes and Amen.” But the reason He won’t is because He doesn’t want to create a spoiled brat who throws a temper tantrum every time, we don’t get our way. So, He lets the struggle go on for a while.

Until we learn the lesson, God doesn’t want to bail us out. God leaves us in our crises until we learn our lesson.

Next, people miss out on God’s best because they bail too soon. God is waiting to see if we really mean business.

The Apostle Paul said, “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Galatians 6:9)

If we’re in a crisis, let’s hang in there. We didn’t get into the crisis overnight, so God’s not going to get us out overnight. We’ve worked years to get as messed up as we are, and because of that we’ve got a lot of ingrained patterns, bad responses, wrong habits, and wrong ways of responding. So, God isn’t going to remove these all at once. Instead, God is going to peel them back one layer at a time.

God’s in the restoration business, and He wants us to stick with it until the blessing comes.