Hebrews 10:36-39
Here are 3 signs that often mean God is saying, “Don’t let it Go.”
1. If You Are Being Tempted to Let a Good Desire Die Before You Even Tried to Pursue It, Oftentimes God Is Saying, “Don’t Let It Go”
The best way for the enemy to stop you from receiving what God wants for you is to stop you right at the beginning of your journey to receive it.
A man and woman will never become a husband and wife if they are too afraid to talk to each other for the first time. A boyfriend and girlfriend will never reach engagement if they let their relationship die the first time they have the smallest disagreement. You won’t ever get to experience your calling if you choose to ignore that calling in your heart. You won’t ever develop the gifts God has given you if you let your first failure prevent you from ever trying to use your gift again.
Certainly some desires should die. Not every desire we have is truly from the Lord. Sometimes in love God will close doors right from the start so we don’t have to waste anytime wondering if God wants us to go there or not.
Sadly, however, we are often too quick to assume that all our desires are bad. Wanting a relationship, wanting a better career, wanting to be spiritually fruitful while using your gift, and so many other common desires are actually good desires that please the Lord. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-11, which states:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. . . . If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
Not all gifts are good, so God won’t always give us everything we want. But if you want something that God knows is good for you, when you ask him for it he will give it to you in his timing. If you have a good desire that you are being tempted to let die before you even really tried to pursue it to see if this was from the Lord or not, then oftentimes God is saying don’t let it go just yet. Ask him first and see what he might do.
2. If You Are About to Lose Something that Is Worth the Fight to Keep, This Is Often a Sign God Is Saying, “Don’t Let It Go”
Everything in life costs us something. Therefore, we are subconsciously constantly doing the math on whether or not the cost is worth the effort to keep these things.
If you meet someone who you have an initial interest in but the relationship quickly becomes difficult, you will do the relationship math in your heart and probably deduce that this is not worth it because you barely know this person and it’s already requiring too much work.
This is a needed process in life, but one danger in doing this type of subconscious emotional math is that oftentimes our emotions begin to weigh more into the equation than they should. It’s easy to let past hurts totally unrelated to this relationship or this career opportunity or this ministry calling to make you feel like this is not worth the pain you are projecting to experience if you continue to pursue this thing.
This is when we need to bring these thoughts up and out of our hearts and begin to contemplate them in our minds. When we do the math in our minds rather than in our hearts, oftentimes we will get a different answer. Sometimes sticking it out even though the relationship is hard is worth it. Sometimes the cost of pursuing your calling is worth it. But sometimes you won’t know this if you only make decisions subconsciously in your heart rather than bringing the decision into your mind as well.
So do the math in your mind and not just your heart. Is the cost worth it? Oftentimes it’s really not. We have to let some things go. Oftentimes that’s what God is actually leading you to do. But if the cost is worth it, then God is probably saying, “Don’t let it go.”
As 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
3. If You Have a Biblical Hope But the Long Wait Is Tempting You to Despair, This Is a Sign God Is Saying, “Don’t Let It Go”
In a day and age where we can order groceries while lying in bed and have them delivered to our house, when we can avoid the drive to the movie theater and we can watch new releases right on our couch, and when we can get everyone’s constant life updates on social media, our hearts can begin to grow weary when we are called to practice perseverance.
But when you read the Scriptures, it’s extremely clear that endurance and perseverance are always core qualities of God’s saints. We are all called to wait at certain points in life. And even though God transfers every spiritual blessing to us in Christ Jesus right when we believe (Ephesians 1:3), there are many biblical promises that require us to wait if we hope to experience them. As Hebrews 10:36-39 (NIV) explains:
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, ‘In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.’ . . . But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
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