While the weekend still felt far away, a friend gave me a prophetic word and said to keep it in my pocket. I saw its meaning as our weekend unfolded: Press the joystick forward in this video game of life, even as you go through a tight transition space. Go forward with joy, she told me.

Joy is a choice. So is defeat. In this season of conditional fulfillment—that is, a season based upon our agreement with God and alignment with His Word—we can be promised joy and not see it. With the eyes of our hearts, we have to agree with joy in Christ, rather than seeing only with our eyes and shaking hands with the doom temporary circumstances and attitudes may predict.

We have to pray all day and know that God hears and is pleased with our prayers. We have to believe that He is answering our prayers, even when we don’t know exactly what to ask for, except, “Help!”

I heard it said, and I think it’s true: God only reveals in order to redeem. Sometimes immediate answers come and things turn around on a dime. Sometimes God will order our steps away from a disaster we never imagined while we are waiting for our child to stop whining and acting out. Even when He doesn’t turn it all on a dime, we need to believe salvation has come. It’s here already. And in the fullness of time, we will see with our eyes as He reveals WHY things are off track, so that He can REDEEM things now. 

Our weekend started off shaky, but we held on. We didn’t let go of God. Together, we held hands across the rope bridge. We discerned the attacks coming against us. We agreed with God as we missed it. We encouraged each other. We didn’t let regret sink us as we looked at Jesus beckoning us out onto the water of a new day.

His mercies were indeed new the morning after our shaky day, and He was glorified in one of the most moving, fulfilling, unexpected, pretty days we’ve ever experienced as a family. Was it a good day? No. It was the b e s t day! 

The way we lose is by discouragement—giving up when we fail. We don’t win, because we forget that God sees and loves us. Loss is missing that He Is Alive!

It wasn’t us; our sovereign, holy God snatched our weekend from the jaws of defeat, because He so loves us.