If you’ve been following along on this series, this is part 3 of our testimony on believing the Lord for a 2nd child after being unable to conceive for more than 8 years. At this part of the story, we are about 4 years in. We casually tried to get pregnant for about 3 years and then decided to seek medical advice. After being diagnosed with Secondary Infertility, we did some very low level fertility procedures for about 4 months which were unsuccessful. We made a decision to stop pursing medical treatment and to really just rest in the Lord and take time to focus on what He wanted to show us and how He was growing us during this time. You can read Part 1 of our Journey here: Part 1: Expecting: Learning to Rest in the Waiting and also, Part 2: Expecting: Learning to Rest in the Waiting. I will say that reading Parts 1 and 2 is critical to understanding our story and what I’m about to share.
Looking back now, it’s amazing to me how much the Lord did in my heart and mind through the one revelation of realizing that when I have Jesus, I already have everything. Nothing is missing and I’m not waiting on anything when I have Him. That revelation was so sustaining as the Lord began to pull me into deeper levels of intimacy with Him. As I chose to rest in Him, He was abundantly supplying me with grace, patience, and the endurance I needed to press in for more insight and understanding. The frustration I had felt, months prior, while going through fertility treatments had completely dissipated and given way to a joyful expectancy of what I knew the Lord was already doing in me. I found myself being able to effortlessly rejoice as I learned friends and family members were expecting. How could I NOT rejoice when I served the same Lord, the same good Father who withholds no good thing from me?! (Psalm 84:11)
As we were getting ready to celebrate the 2017 New Year, I started to press into the Lord about what He would have me focus on and believe Him for in the coming year. This is when I really felt a stirring that I could not let this place of contentment turn into a place of complacency. You see, I had spent the entire previous year meditating on how much I already had in Jesus. There’s no way to go through that experience without fully delving into what He accomplished for us at Calvary. Jesus’s work at the cross was so perfect and so complete— including how He, in all His wisdom and understanding, (Ephesians 1:7-10) identified us with His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6). His perfect work and righteousness qualified Him (and therefore us) with every blessing and His full inheritance (Romans 8:17). Even more, we don’t have to strive to inherit what Jesus won at the cross. Once the will is written, the inheritance is automatically dispensed at death. Jesus has already died for us. He died so that we could inherit what only He earned and deserved in His lifetime. In all other cases, inheritance is the consolation of death, but for Jesus, it was the motivation of His death. Jesus laid down all His rights at the cross so that we might have the right to become children of God and co-heirs with Christ. This was the joy that was set before Him at the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
Psalm 127:8 tells us that children (plural) are a blessing, an inheritance of the Lord. The Father began to show me that I bring Him the most glory when I fully lay hold of what Jesus accomplished for me at the cross so that not one ounce of His suffering was in vain. He started to kindle in me a righteous desire to fully possess the abundant life Jesus died to give me and to not leave anything on the table. I began to see that it was not the Father’s will or desire for me to become complacent or passive about something that He and Jesus paid an incalculable and immeasurable price for. He was glorified in the place of contentment I had come to in the previous year, but now He was showing me that His glory being manifested and fulfilled in our lives is part of Jesus’s reward here on the earth and I knew I wanted Him to get every last drop of reward that could be squeezed from my life. I can wholeheartedly say this was no longer about my desire for another child. This was now completely about Jesus being glorified in me receiving what He had already paid for. I knew that I wanted others to be able to share in our victory and taste and see how good the Lord is.
I sat down with my prayer journal and started writing down and looking up every verse in Scripture I could think of that had to do with the blessing of children, inheritance, resting in and waiting on the Lord. In the past, when I’ve been believing the Lord for something big— whether it be a husband, marriage, healing, finances, a supernatural breakthrough with work— I’ve found this to be such an effective course of action. I write out every verse and read through and meditate on them daily. As I’m studying the Word or listening to sermons, I’ll find more verses and add them to the list. Before long, my prayer journal had become nearly illegible with all the verses and notes taking up every available inch and margin. For more than 3 years, I mediated on these verses daily. The truths of these words seeped deeply into my heart and soul, becoming part of my very identity. In retrospect, I believe that taking time to do this was critical in my journey. In fact, I think there’s a really good precedent for it in Scripture. One of my favorite passages is found in John 15:1-7 about the Vine and the branches:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
Over and over in this passage, Jesus is imploring us to abide (rest, stay, wait, remain) in Him. Six times He says, “abide in Me,” until verse 7, He changes one word that makes ALL the difference. He says, “If you abide in Me and My WORDS abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you.” When we look at this passage as a whole, we see a process of abiding in the Vine, of abiding in Jesus. It speaks of time spent with Him, it speaks of intimacy, relationship, of getting to know who He really is, His character and nature. One of the best ways we can get to know Him is through His Word. John chapter 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. When we approach reading His Word with hearts eager to learn more of who He is, we won’t walk away disappointed. The intimacy and relationship come first, but we eventually come to a point where we’ve meditated on His words for so long that the Holy Spirit has personally revealed each and every truth in those Scriptures to us. These words then belong to us, they can never be taken from us. The world can pick us up and turn us upside down, but those revealed words won’t be shaken from us. It’s from this position where we can confidently ask and be assured of our victory. One of the important facets of intentionally meditating on Scripture is to not allow it to become just another thing for us to do. We don’t want to robotically read through the verses and check it off of our “To Do” list for the day. Receiving from the Lord is not a formula. Instead of viewing it as something to DO, we must realize the goal is to saturate ourselves in what Jesus has already DONE for us.
Each day when I sat, read through, and meditated on those verses, I knew they were producing something valuable in me. I could feel my heart and mind being increasingly persuaded and confident that He who began this good work in me would carry it out to completion (Philippians 1:6). Whatever you’re believing the Lord for, I encourage you to start spending time in His Word and find Scripture verses that minister to you to meditate on. In Part 4 of our story, I will share with you all the Scriptures I stood on for the last number of years.