It’s easy to get discouraged when the changes we desire don’t happen when we want them to. But hold fast to Jesus. Make Him your supreme desire. Trust Him today with all of its worries and all of tomorrow’s unknowns. Don’t bank on feelings and emotions. They will come and go like chaff in the wind. Don’t bank on what the world calls successful or worthy. These are all futile pursuits.  Seek, rather, to be rooted in Jesus Christ. Plant yourself daily in His eternal and unchanging Word that gives real life to the soul. Grow in the knowledge of His grace that rescued and redeemed you, and is sanctifying you little by little every day. 

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  Ephesians 3:17-19

We need faith that is rooted deep, not just rich with emotion and experiences. We need faith that trusts in the eternal more than the immediate.

Our world sees the experiential and the here and now as more real than the unseen and eternal. If you feel it, see it, taste it, or can be stirred up by it, right now, then it’s real.

People are hurting and broken, longing for meaning and purpose, laboring for happiness and joy in life, and being told time and time again that they’ll know they have found what they’re looking for if it feels good and brings immediate and visible change.

When we measure life this way we’re left empty. The things that matter most in life rarely happen fast. It takes time to find the right spouse. It takes time to learn and advance on a career path. It takes time to become a better parent, grow in maturity, get out of debt, or heal from sickness, pain and fear.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Compared to the tree that it produces, it’s among the smallest of seeds. Being a Christian in this Kingdom will mean that what is being produced in us by Jesus, though it be small and comparatively insignificant right now, will one dayhave influence that spreads like the branches of a large tree. Seeds are planted and may not sprout for days. Yet with time and patience, fruit comes.

Faith in the Son of God is not about fast changes. It’s about truth hidden in our hearts that is doing something now, and will one day spring forth as great trees producing more fruit than we can imagine.

Through faith the hardest part is already done. We are saved, forgiven and set free from the bondage of sin. Through faith God does the work of transferring us from darkness to being citizens of Christ’s eternal Kingdom. Through faith in Jesus we are given the guarantee of better things to come. They’re not all immediate things, but we have a more substantial promise that when this life is over everything will be made right again. A day is coming when all whose faith was in the perfect Son will be given new bodies to replace these old and worn out ones. The corruptible will put on incorruptible. Death will be swallowed up. Righteousness will reign.

It’s easy to get discouraged when the changes we desire don’t happen when we want them to. But hold fast to Jesus. Make Him your supreme desire. Trust Him today with all of its worries and all of tomorrow’s unknowns. Don’t bank on feelings and emotions. They will come and go like chaff in the wind. Don’t bank on what the world calls successful or worthy. These are all futile pursuits.  Seek, rather, to be rooted in Jesus Christ. Plant yourself daily in His eternal and unchanging Word that gives real life to the soul. Grow in the knowledge of His grace that rescued and redeemed you, and is sanctifying you little by little every day. In His timing He will bring about in you the changes, the victories, the healing and successes that He desires.

Joel Littlefield is a church planter in Bath, Maine. This article is used with permission.