Topic: When You’re at a Dead End, God Can Deliver You [RICK WARREN Devotional 21 April 2023]
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When You’re at a Dead End, God Can Deliver You
BY RICK WARREN — APRIL 21, 2023
FROM CREATED TO DREAM
“Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.”
Romans 4:17 (NLT)
In this series, we’re learning how God takes us through the Six Phases of Faith—a dream, decision, delay, difficulty, dead end, and deliverance—over and over again throughout our lives to grow our faith and develop our character.
The fifth phase God uses to grow your faith happens when you hit a dead end and it seems like your dream has turned to dust. It may feel like the dream is over, but it’s not. You’ve just moved into the next phase God uses to grow your faith.
During the dead-end phase, nothing makes sense. Things are out of your control, and you can’t do anything about it. In this phase you may hear—and experience—dead-end words like “cancer,” “divorce,” “bankruptcy,” “infertility,” or “unemployment.”
You’ll find yourself asking, “Why is this happening to me? God, did I miss your will? Was this dream just something I thought up myself and not from you?” When you start asking those questions, you’re at a dead end, and you need God’s deliverance.
While you’re stuck and waiting for deliverance, you need to remember what God can do. The situation may be out of your control, but it’s not out of God’s control. When you face a dead end, don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus instead on what God can do.
Romans 4:17 says, “Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing” (NLT).
Here are two of the many things God can do that you can’t do: First, he can give life to the dead. Second, he can create something out of nothing. If God can give life to a dead man, he can give life to a dead career. He can bring life to your dead marriage. He can create something out of your dead dream. He can bring something new out of a financial dead end.
Abraham believed in God. That wasn’t just positive thinking; it was faith. Positive thinking works fine in situations you can control. But positive thinking is not faith, and it’s not enough when you find yourself at a dead end.
In situations that are out of your control, positive thinking is worthless. It doesn’t change the situation! When you face things that are out of your control, you need something more than a positive mental attitude. You need faith in God, because he can control what you can’t.
Jesus says in Luke 18:27, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (NIV). God specializes in the impossible. He works miracles all the time—and he can work them in your life too!
What dead end are you facing today? God is ready to turn your dead end into deliverance.
Talk It Over
- When have you seen God bring life out of a dead end? How did that change you?
- Why is it sometimes difficult to admit that something is out of your control? What difference does it make when you do admit that?
- What dead end are you facing today? What would it look like to respond with faith, not just positive thinking?
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