The Shepherdess Speaks...

Where is the Road?

To lose heart is to lose the desire and will to go on, to lose our courage to continue moving forward. Perhaps we are weary with the battle, tired of pressing through so many difficult circumstances. Are we ready to quit and throw in the towel, to go back down the narrow road we have traveled for so long?

To be discouraged is common to all pilgrims, but we rise above this temporary state and by faith, we take on new courage. But to lose heart altogether is not just a temporary setback, not just a stumble, a fall, or dip in the road. Losing heart has fatal consequences. We make shipwreck of our faith and cause others to lose heart. If we turn around and head back to Egypt, others will lose courage as well. We depend on each other; we need each other.

Even so, as fellow travelers on this road of faith, we must value our own personal relationship with God above all else, above all powers and principalities, above all that Satan would present to hinder our forward progress, remembering always that our trust for every situation is in God alone. The arm of flesh is weak and friends may fail to understand us. Our fellow pilgrims cannot prevent the many discouragements that come our way.

The arm of God is strong to uphold us and He loves us so much that we are graven upon the palms of his hands. Therefore, we do not lose heart when there seems to be no way out of our difficulties. He will make a way, and that is enough to know.

© 2012 by Ruth Carmichael Ellinger

Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of my hands...

Isaiah 49:16

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.”

John 10: 27-29