Romans 12:12 | How to Stay Standing When the Season Is Hard

Romans 12:12 is three phrases that look like a to-do list and are actually one posture. Rejoice in hope. Endure in troubles. Continue steadfastly in prayer. Paul is not giving you three separate commands. He is describing a single way of standing in the middle of a hard season.

In this episode we slow down on each phrase and look at how they hold each other up.

Rejoicing in hope is not the same as rejoicing in circumstances. Circumstantial rejoicing evaporates the moment the season turns. Hope is anchored to something that has not arrived yet, which means it can hold when everything else is unstable.

Enduring in troubles. The word thlipsis means pressure, compression, the kind of difficulty that presses in from the outside and tries to reshape you from the inside. Paul is not telling you to become numb to it. He is describing what it looks like to stay in it with your footing intact. That is only possible if the first phrase is actually true for you.

And then prayer, which turns out to be what holds the other two together. When the conversation with God closes, the hope gets harder to hold and the endurance starts to feel like pure willpower.

This one is for the slow hard seasons. The ones that do not make for a good story but take more out of you than the dramatic ones do.

Formation to Transformation is a worship devotional for people who want worship to be more than a song set. New episodes every week through Romans 12.

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