baking cookies

Don’t quit. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. Don’t walk away. Don’t throw it in the trash. Don’t give it back.

Stay. Stay the course. Stay a little while longer. Keep it in your heart. Keep praying about it. Keep thinking about it. Keep pursuing. Keep pushing forward. Keep going.

Hold on to it.

Hold on to the promise that God has given you. Hold on to the call that God has placed in you. Hold on.

No one goes into war without a weapon to defend themselves. God has given you his word as a weapon to use against those times the enemy is yelling in your head. Use it. It will sustain you. It will protect you. It will keep you.

If you don’t believe me – try it! There is a reason God says to “hide his word in your heart.” (Psalm 119:11). It is alive. It’s not just words on thin paper. The battle between your mind and heart is never ending.  Your mind thinks one thing, but your heart feels another. When your mind begins to tell you that you’re forgotten about, you’ll never make it, you’re not good enough, listen to what your heart says. Don’t just keep his word in your heart, think on it. When you begin to think about those scriptures you’ve read, your mind will be transformed. We control what we put in our minds, it doesn’t just appear there. We feed it life or we feed it death by what we allow to enter it and stay. The enemy is REAL. He is constantly trying to speak things in our minds and we choose to let it stay or reject it.

Keep holding on. Keep believing; keep his word alive in your life. The wait or the journey will become one you look back on and appreciate, one you’ll find growth in, one that will change you. More importantly, it will prepare you for the promises, dreams, calling, or whatever it might be that God is stirring within your heart.

God knows exactly where you are. He sees you right where you are. He knows exactly what he is doing, too.

You don’t bake a cookie in a cold oven – it has to be cooked at a certain degree. The oven doesn’t heat up to 350 degrees in an instant; it’s a process of going from cold to hot. When it’s at the right degree it’s ready to go. In other words, you may be feeling the heat, and it may get hotter, but God knows the right degree you need to be at. He loves you more than you love cookies or whatever else you love.