Mountains

What mountains are you facing at the moment?

No matter what mountain you are facing there is something I want to remind you of – that God is bigger and greater

than any and every mountain you are facing and will ever face.

The devil’s hope is that the mountains in our lives will stop us in our tracks. He hopes that fear will get us to doubt

God’s greatness and power.

And to be honest, I was feeling overwhelmed a few days ago by the mountains in my life. I could even say fear began to

grow the more I analyzed the mountains. I looked at my strength and resources and saw how painfully lacking I was to

deal with the mountains and that’s how the fear, the hopelessness, and anxiety came. But I was reminded that God is

bigger and greater than the mountains I face as I brought my fears to Him. God wants you to talk to Him about what you

are struggling with always. He cares about what you are going through.

There is no mountain that God can’t take deal with.

“Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerrubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by

power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain:

Zechariah 4:6

I also think about the Israelites who were by the “gate” of their promise land but instead of trusting God and possessing

what He promised them, they looked at how powerful their “mountain” was compared to themselves.

That’s where they made the mistake. Instead of comparing the “mountain” to God, they compared the “mountain” to

themselves and that’s where we hear words like grasshoppers appear.

We can’t overcome mountains in our own strength. We need God period.

Bring your mountains to Him and remember that He is bigger and greater than every mountain that you are facing!

Bless you friends.

Rolain

Jesus Know Your Pain

Jesus knows all of the pain we go through. He knows the grief, the sorrows, the disappointment,

the brokenness we go through. And that is why we need to go to Him with all those things.

He not only knows what we are going through but He is deeply acquainted with it because He

Went through all those things. He totally understands what you are going through more than the

Closest person in your life may know! 

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,

as one from whom men hide their faces and he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Isaiah 53:3

What a title. The Man of Sorrows!

And that is why we need to go to Him with our pain, sorrow, brokenness and grief. He wants you to

Help you in your dark times, when you are in pain, broken and in grief. So don’t go through it alone.

Tell Him what you are struggling with. Be open and transparent with everything you are facing.

He cares and loves you so much.

But there is more!

There is a promise we need to hold onto in the valley of death, an amazing promise that He has

promised us.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”

Luke 6:21

You may be weeping now but Jesus promises you will laugh. It may seem unlikely at the moment but

His promise will be fulfilled in your life. Don’t let the devil lie to you that things won’t change, that the

Darkness will stay. It’s not true. Hold on to God’s promises instead.

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

Psalm 30:5

I love this!

So first we see laughter and now in this verse we see joy. There will be a turnaround in your life.

God is so good. He will bring healing to you.

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me

With gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks

to you forever!”

Psalm 30:11, 12

Because of Him there will be laughter, joy and now dancing!

How great is His love toward us!

So whatever you are going through at the moment, know that it won’t last. The Lord is with you and will

Help you. He won’t leave you in the valley of death.

And as I close I want to remind you to bring Him your pain, your grief, brokenness and sorrow.

He is the Man of Sorrows and knows what you are going through. He wants you to walk in the amazing

Promises he has for you. He wants to heal you and He wants you to walk in freedom.

Trust Him to make a way for you. You may not see how He will turn things around but that’s where faith

Comes in. Put your faith in Him to heal you of the pain you have.

You are His son and daughter and He will breakthrough for you.

He is not done with you friend.

Bless you

Rolain

Keep On Believing

When faced with impossible odds and difficult situations we need to keep on praying.

We need to keep trusting and believing that God will come through for us even when our circumstances are

far from ideal. Even when things are going the opposite of what God has promised.

I was so encouraged as I read Luke chapter one. And it’s the story of John’s parents.

“But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will

bear a son, and you shall call his name John.”

Luke 1:13

We know Zechariah has been praying for a child because the angel was there because of his prayer;

“Do not be afraid Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard”

He kept praying and trusting God for a child in spite of the impossible circumstances he and Elizabeth were in;

“And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.”

Luke 1:6, 7

They were advanced in age and Elizabeth was barren but that didn’t stop them from trusting God for a child. That didn’t

stop Zechariah from praying. No matter how impossible it seemed, he kept praying, he kept trusting God.

As the years went by they didn’t stop believing. They did not give up.

And because they didn’t give up they received an answer to their prayers!

And that’s what I want to encourage you with.

No matter how impossible your situation seems, keep praying, keep trusting in the Lord. Don’t give up hope.

God will fulfill what He promised you.

Even though things are going wrong in your life and prayer doesn’t seem to be getting answered don’t stop.

Keep on believing that God will come through for you because He will.

And with that I have come to the end of the post.

Thank you for reading it and I would love to hear what your thoughts are on the topic.

And remember, no matter how impossible the odds seem, don’t give up praying, don’t give up trusting God.

Bless you friends

Rolain

Gather Your Stones

We need to do everything we can to remember what God has done for us and not in a once-off kind of way but as a lifestyle.

God has done so much for us and He is doing so much more that we can’t afford to forget. Forgetting is so easy and

the enemy would love us to forget. he would love us to be so focused on the trials and the giants that we don’t even

stop to think WHO is on our side and the power He has.

I was talking to a friend this week and He reminded me of this truth. I was talking to him about a few things I was trusting

God for when he reminded me of what God had done for me in the past. As he reminded me my faith got energized

and I left that conversation repenting to God. I realized that God had come through for me in pretty amazing ways in

the past so these current things I was trusting for were not a big deal to Him.

We MUST do everything we can to remember. Throughout out scripture God continually reminded His people to remember

what He had done for them.

Take Joshua for example. he was about to enter the promise land but before entering it he came across the Jordan river. God

then gave him an interesting command;

“He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone

and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 

Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went

across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.””

Joshua 4:5-7 NLT

God told him to gather stones from the Jordan to help His people for generations to come remember what He had done.

Over and over in the Word we read how God’s people continually forgot what He had done for them.

“They did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his instructions.

They forgot what he had done—the great wonders he had shown them,”

Psalm 78:10, 11 NLT

“Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power and how he

rescued them from their enemies.

They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.”

Psalm 78:41-43 NLT

As you can see, they continually forgot what God had done and instead of trusting God they complained, were fearful, murmured

and didn’t trust God.

If you are going to enter a new level and receive the new things God has for you, then you need to remember! Do everything you

can to remember. That’s what David did when he faced Goliath,

But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a

lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw

and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the

armies of the living God! The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!”

1 Samuel 17:34-37 NLT

Because David remembered what God had done to the lion and bear, he had faith that God would deliver him from the giant!

Don’t forget what God has done to the lion and the bear in your life.

There are more victories in store for you.

As I come to the end of this post I want to share one more scripture to help you remember the amazing things God has done

consistently,

“But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind

as long as you live!”

Deuteronomy 4:9 NLT

And with that I have come to the end of this post. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. What do you do to remember

the amazing things God has done for you?

And on one last note, I have a video version of the posts I write on my YouTube channel. If you prefer watching to reading then

click here to follow me on YouTube and even if you prefer reading, still follow me 🙂

Thank you friends and see you soon.  

Rolain

The Plan Is On

Hey friends.

I can’t believe a month has already passed us by!

I had decided to take a break in January and I am glad I did that.

But I am really pumped to be back.

So I know this is late but Happy New Year to you all!

I wanted to focus on Jeremiah 29:11 today. It’s a very popular passage of scripture and it’s one of my favorites for sure!

But I want to look at in context because I think it’s even more powerful when you look at the full picture.

“These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to

the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

Jeremiah 29:1

God’s people were forcefully taken away from their home. It had been destroyed and burned by the Babylonians.

So there they were in a foreign land with no hope for the future. They were discouraged, hopeless and lost in Babylon.

But in the midst of those grim circumstances God had a word for His people,

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11

In that hopeless situation, God’s plan for His people was very much alive. Even though it was hard to see at the moment, God

would free them from their captives. He had an amazing plan for them!

You may be in a place today and you are hopeless and see no future for yourself but I want to encourage you to keep hoping.

Hold on to your faith in God because He has a plan for your life, an amazing life. In spite of the grim circumstances, God’s plan

for your life is very much alive. Don’t lose hope.

Bless you friends

Rolain

You Are Not Alone at Christmas!

Christmas is a few days away and there are a lot of people who are excited. And how can they not be?

The Christmas tree is decorated

The gifts are ready

The family is coming over

The food is sorted

Friends will be there

and so on and so on…

But there is another reality to Christmas. The reality that there are a lot of people facing depression, people who are contemplating

suicide, people who are facing mental health issues and so many other negative things.

But there is an answer to all the pain and difficult things we go through not just at Christmas but throughout the year.

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom

men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Isaiah 53:3 ASV

I love this scripture because it’s talking about JESUS. He was despised and rejected by men. He was acquainted with grief.

He was a man of sorrows! What a title.

If there is anyone who knows the pain you are going through it’s JESUS. He knows exactly what you are going through?

He knows the darkness you are in and the chains that are suffocating you.

He knows the hopelessness you are feeling at the moment and that is why you should call on Him immediately.

Whatever you are going through at the moment I want you to know that you are not alone. He is with you. He wants

to help you and bring you out of the darkness. He wants to break the chains that are suffocating you right now.

Whatever pain and heartache you are going through remember that Jesus went through it. He was the man of sorrows.

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Isaiah 53:4 ASV

Give Him your grief. He will carry your sorrow.

So cry out to Him for help. He loves you and wants to be there for you.

He knows your every pain that you are going through right now.

There is hope for you this Christmas friend. And His name is JESUS!

Rolain

 

Big Problems, Bigger God!

There will always be giants to fight, trials and difficult times that come our way but we must always remember that

no matter how big the giants are, or how threatening the trials and problems seem, that God is bigger than ALL the

problems we face.

In the midst of the problems you face remember that God is bigger.

There is NO problem that you are facing right now that is bigger than God.

And it’s especially important where you are focused. Make sure that you are not focused on the problem alone.

Focus on the Lord in the midst of what you are going through.

The enemy wants you to focus on the problems, and the giants that are in your way so much that they seem bigger and

stronger than God. That’s what happened to Israel when they faced Goliath.

Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to the Israelites. “Why are you all coming out to fight?” he called. “I am the Philistine champion, but you are only the servants of Saul. Choose one man to come down here and fight me! If he kills me, then we will be your slaves. But if I kill him, you will be our slaves! I defy the armies of Israel today! Send me a man who will fight me!” When Saul and the Israelites heard this, they were terrified and deeply shaken.

1 Samuel 17:8-11 NLT

And this happened for 40 days and nights. (1 Samuel 17:16)

They were so focused on the GIANT problem in front of them that they forgot that God was bigger and much stronger than Goliath. But that was not the case with David. He knew God was bigger than Goliath. He was confident that God would destroy Goliath. (1 Samuel 17:34-37)

Friends, I want to encourage you to look to God in the midst of the difficult things you are going through today.

He is bigger than EVERY problem you will ever face.

No matter what you are going through call on Him.

You don’t need to go at it alone. You are not alone in the fire.

God is with you and He will deliver you!

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”

Psalm 18:2 NLT

Bless you friends

Rolain

This Is Not How It Ends

It’s so hard to see victory when all you experience is failure.

And it’s so hard to be full faith when fear has gripped you.

And it’s also extremely difficult to be hope-filled for your future when you are hopeless and your circumstances don’t

seem to be changing.

But I want to encourage you that this is not how your story ends. There is so much more to your story.

You can’t give in to the negative narrative you living in at the moment.

Things will get better friend.

I heard someone say,

“Don’t make a permanent solution out of a temporary problem”

Don’t write your off story because nothing seems to be happening.

God is working!

I love what Jeremiah 29:11 says,

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord.

“They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

No matter how bad things get or how hopeless your life seems know that God has a different ending for you.

It’s a great end.

Don’t lose hope.

Have faith that God will turn your life around.

On other news I am excited to tell you that my second book is about to be released.

It is titled, Delayed But Not Forgotten.

So as we wait I have created a free version (teaser) that you can read.

Click here to get your copy today.

Bless you friends

Rolain

Wait A Bit More!

What are you waiting for? How long have you been waiting?

Waiting is not an easy thing to do. It actual is a big step of faith because you are giving up your control so God can be in control.

I love how Psalm 27:14 describes waiting on God,

“Wait patiently for the Lord.

Be brave and courageous.

Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Words like, be brave, be strong and courageous are used. That should give you an idea of how hard it is to wait.

But I want to encourage you to keep on waiting. No matter how long you have been waiting, no matter the obstacles, the closed doors and unanswered prayers you have faced, keep waiting on the Lord. Don’t throw in the towel. Keep standing in faith that God will come to your rescue.

He will come through for you.

He will answer your prayers.

He will breakthrough on your behalf.

I would like to share a scripture that encouraged me this week

“I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me.

Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry. He stooped down to lift me out of danger from the desolate pit I was in,

out of the muddy mess I had fallen into. Now he’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place and steadied me

while I walk along his ascending path.”

Psalm 40:1, 2 TPT

Wait a bit longer friend.

God will come to your rescue. the word says, “AT LAST, he bent down and listened to my cry.” (emphasis mine)

It may seem like nothing is happening right now but things will change. He knows exactly where you are.

Don’t give up. God is good and He is faithful. He will not abandon you.

He knows you are waiting on Him so He will not waste your wait.

As you wait on Him be confident and assured that He has got you. Stand strong in faith as you wait on Him.

If you don’t know, I unveiled my book cover of my latest book this week.

It is almost finished so in the meantime

I created a free version (teaser) of my upcoming book. If you would like to get a copy of it please click here to get it.

And after you read it I would really love to hear your thoughts on it.

Bless you friends

Rolain

New Book Announcement

Hi Friends!

I have some exciting news. I am about to release my second book and I wanted to share the title with you.

The book is titled, DELAYED BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

It’s been years in the making literally. God has been teaching me a lot about waiting on Him for everything and to be honest it has been intense. Waiting is not easy at all. There has been pain, disappointment, heartache, confusion along the way but God has been so patient with me. He has lovingly guided me and continues to because my journey of learning to wait is far from over. There is so much more to learn.

In the book I talk about my journey of waiting and the lessons God has been teaching me. So I am so excited to share my journey with you. The book is in its final stages of completion so expect it very soon.

But in the meantime I have created a free version (teaser) as you wait.

Click here to get a copy of it on email.

What are you waiting for? How long have you been waiting?

Always remember that God never makes you wait out of spite.

He makes you wait because He loves you.

God bless you friends.

Rolain