The list gets longer with age. Difficult medical appointments. Hard conversations with employees. Complicated paperwork that seems to multiply the longer it sits untouched. And with every item on that list comes the familiar temptation to simply pretend it does not matter, to put it off one more day, to numb out and avoid what needs to be faced. When we were younger, procrastination and denial worked for a while. Most of us eventually learn what avoidance actually costs us. The opportunity to address something in...
The list gets longer with age. Difficult medical appointments. Hard conversations with employees. Complicated paperwork that seems to multiply the longer it sits untouched. And with every item on that list comes the familiar temptation to simply pretend it does not matter, to put it off one more day, to numb out and avoid what needs to be faced.
When we were younger, procrastination and denial worked for a while. Most of us eventually learn what avoidance actually costs us. The opportunity to address something in the right moment passes. The health issue left unattended becomes something worse. The paperwork left sitting seems to breed and multiply. The problems do not shrink while we are looking away from them. They grow.
And all the while, we could have been praying. We could have been running to the One who is not fazed by any of it.
Zechariah 9:12 does not describe God as a vague spiritual presence or a general feeling of comfort. It calls Him a fortress. Something solid. Something that holds. And the invitation is direct: return to it. Stop numbing, stop avoiding, stop pretending the hard things will somehow resolve themselves without you, and return to the One who is bigger than every difficulty you are currently circling.
God is never caught off guard by the rudeness of our day-to-day struggles. He is not overwhelmed by the complicated, the unpleasant, or the things we have been too brittle and discouraged to face. He knows exactly how susceptible we are to discouragement, and He is kind in it. Gracious in it. Ready to offer support and wisdom the moment we stop avoiding and start asking.
The tomb is empty. Death itself has been defeated. Whatever is waiting on your to-do list tomorrow, whatever hard conversation or difficult task you have been putting off, it is not bigger than that.
Run to the fortress. Find your hope there.
Ponder Tonight
Avoidance rarely makes hard things smaller. Most of the time it simply allows them to grow while draining the energy we could have spent praying for wisdom and taking the next step forward.
God describes Himself as a fortress precisely because a fortress is not a feeling. It is a structure that holds regardless of what is pressing against it, and we are invited to run to it before we try to handle anything on our own.
Even God, who could have spoken all of creation into existence in a single breath, chose to spread the work over six days. There is wisdom in breaking large and daunting tasks into smaller pieces and acknowledging each small step forward.
The courage to face what we would rather avoid is not something we manufacture in ourselves. It is something we receive when we return to the One who has already overcome everything we fear.
Tonight's Scripture
"Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope." — Zechariah 9:12, NIV
Your Evening Prayer
Heavenly Father,
Help us remember just how big You are. You are a fortress, but more than that. A human fortress is a finite structure that can be undermined with the right weapons and a large enough army. You are infinite and omnipotent. You not only withstand the enemy's efforts, You have overcome them. The tomb is empty. What bigger enemy is there than death? And You defeated it.
Forgive us for the times we have chosen avoidance over trust, numbing over prayer, procrastination over running to You. Remind us that we are never alone in the hard and unpleasant things. Give us the courage to face what needs to be faced, the wisdom to know how to approach it, and the grace to do it well.
Help us remember to run to Your fortress first.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
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