You have heard all the right things from all the right people and not one word of it has landed. You have prayed and felt nothing. You have waited and received nothing and somewhere along the way, you stopped being angry about it. You stopped feeling much of anything. That quiet numbness, the kind where you are going through the motions of being alive but you cannot actually feel yourself living, that is where you are, and you cannot find a single reason to keep going.
I am not going to pretend that sentence is easy to sit with. It is not but I want you to know that I am not afraid of it, and neither is God.
There is a man in Scripture who arrived at this exact place and his name was Job. He had not done anything wrong, he had not drifted from God or made a catastrophic choice. He had simply lost everything, his children, his livelihood, his health, the goodwill of the people closest to him, and in the middle of all of it, he sat in silence for seven days because the people around him could see that his grief was too heavy for words. When he finally opened his mouth, he did not ask for answers. He said this:
"Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?” Job 3:11
Job was not being theatrical. He was not declaring his pain for sympathy. He was simply telling the truth about where he was, and he was telling it directly to God. That is one of the most remarkable things about this book of Scripture. God did not shut down his words neither did He correct Job for asking the question. He let the question stand, because He knew Job needed to say it before anything else could happen.
You are allowed to say it too. Not because saying it makes it true, but because pretending you are fine when you are not has already cost you more than you can afford. You have been carrying the weight of this alone and it is not sustainable. God already knows where you are. You are not hiding anything from Him but there is something that happens when you stop pretending to be okay and just bring what is real before God, and the good news is, He is ever ready to listen.
I also want to say something about the people who told you to hold on. Not because they were wrong, but because sometimes holding on feels like the cruelest instruction anyone has ever given you. When everything inside you has run dry and you cannot locate the hope that is supposed to be there, being told to hold on can feel like being handed a rope with no anchor on the other end.
So let me say it differently. You do not have to hold on to hope right now. You just have to stay. Those are not the same thing. Hope is something you feel. Staying is something you choose, and you can choose it even when you feel absolutely nothing.
The Prophet Jeremiah understood this. He wrote the book of Lamentations from inside a city that had been completely destroyed. He was not writing from the other side of his pain, but he was writing from the centre of it, and in one of the most honest passages in all of Scripture, he said something that had nothing to do with feeling hopeful. He said:
"This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:21-23
Notice what he said first: “this I recall to my mind.” He was not feeling it. He was remembering it. He made a deliberate choice to turn his thinking toward something true about God even when none of that truth felt real to him in the moment. That is not a spiritual super power, that is just a man choosing to stay long enough to let tomorrow arrive.
Tomorrow has God’s mercy you have not received yet. You cannot see it from where you are sitting and I am not going to tell you that it is going to fix everything. What I am going to tell you is that it is there. God's compassions never run out. It did not run out for Job, it did it run out for Jeremiah, neither will it run out for you. Even when you cannot feel it.
When you have exhausted every reason and every feeling and every ounce of your own strength, what remains is not nothing. What remains is the most honest version of yourself standing before God with empty hands, and that is actually the posture He has been waiting for. Not because He wants you broken, but because the moment you stop holding yourself together by sheer willpower is the moment He can actually hold you.
There is a verse in the Bible that does not get quoted enough at people who are at the end of themselves, and it is this:
"He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength." Isaiah 40:29
To those who have no might, not to those who are almost strong enough, not to those who are trying really hard but to the ones who have nothing left. That is who this verse is written for. That is who you are right now, and that is exactly the person God is reaching toward in this moment.
You do not need a reason to keep going today. You just need to stay through today. Let tomorrow handle itself. Let God handle tomorrow. What He is asking of you right now is not strength, it is just presence. Just the willingness to still be here.
God has not given up on you, not when you had nothing to offer, not when the prayers stopped feeling real, but when you cannot even find the words. He is not waiting for you to come back at full capacity. He is sitting right here, in the quiet, in the empty, in the place where you ran out of reasons. He is already there and He is not leaving.
Something To Think About.
When did the numbness start, and is there one honest thing you have been afraid to say out loud because you were not sure God could handle hearing it? If you do not have a reason to keep going today, what would it look like to choose to stay anyway, just for today, without needing to feel anything about it? Job told God the truth from the centre of his pain and God did not turn away. What would you say to God right now if you were allowed to be completely honest?
Prayer.
Lord, I have run out of reasons and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I do not know what tomorrow looks like and I cannot feel You the way I used to. But I am still here, and I am choosing to stay. Meet me where I actually am, not where I am supposed to be. Give me the strength I can not manufacture for myself and let tomorrow carry Your mercy I cannot see right now. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Challenge.
This week, do one small thing that is only possible if you are still here. Make a cup of something warm. Step outside for five minutes. Write one sentence about how you actually feel and leave it somewhere only you will see it. You do not have to share it. You do not have to explain it. Just do one thing that only a living person can do, because you are still here, and that matters more than you know right now.
Today’s post was titled “When You Have Lost The Why, Keep Moving Anyway.” Share it with someone close to you now. God bless you!
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