If you’ve reached the ‘end of your rope’ – tie a knot and hang on. Help is on the way!

I’ve met too many people lately with the same story – things are ganging up on them. Too many spiritual battles, too many unanswered prayers, too many lingering health issues. There appears to be an epidemic of pressure that many are experiencing. So here is a twenty year old Fresh Heart devotional that you may need now more than when it was written. 

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the

day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground,

and after you have done everything, to stand.”

Ephesians 6:13 NIV

Here’s the question: What do you do when there’s nothing more you can do?

Don’t take that question lightly.

Who hasn’t been ‘living a question with no answer?’ Who has never been in a room with no apparent doors or windows … no escape? Who has never faced a test with great resolve and determination only to expend every ounce of energy, every resource and every ounce of hope without a resolution at hand?

Obviously the Apostle Paul had been in battles like this. He had faced defeat head on without the comforting sound of the cavalry mounting a rescue. He had been pushed and pummeled and hemmed in … had hope trashed … had options removed one by one until there were none left.

At that point, “after you have done everything” what then? Is it over? To let go of the rope and fall into whatever abyss awaits becomes the only option that comes to our beleaguered hearts and minds.

But wait! There is one more option. The bag isn’t entirely empty. There is one instruction left that must be followed. We haven’t really done everything until we’ve taken this last critical step when overwhelmed by disaster.

So with shoulders sagging, hearts questioning, physical impairments screaming, friends misunderstanding and impending doom surrounding us like thick fog we do the only thing left for us to do. “Stand.” But after the intense labor of fighting and worrying, the sudden ‘stop to stand’ feels like we’re doing nothing. But we are doing something. We are waiting for the only One who can really help us.

When we reach the end of our resources, we do well to remember the incredible theology in Martin Luther’s second verse to “A Mighty Fortress:”

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;


Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:


Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He


Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,


And He must win the battle.

This week rejoice that you’re really not out of options. There still is God and He intends taking us into the winner’s circle with Him!