Things They Don't Tell You When You Follow God Closely: The Storms Get Worse Before They Get Better

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They Don't Tell You the Storms Get Worse Before They Get Better

Welcome to a new Sunday series at Alpha VI Battalion. Every week, we are going to talk about the things nobody told you when you started following God closely. Not the polished version. Not the version designed to make you feel comfortable. The real version, the one that makes sense of what you are actually going through right now.

We are starting this series because someone needs to say these things out loud. If this is your first Sunday here, welcome. If you have been here before, you already know we do not do surface-level. Let's get into it.

Nobody Warned You About This

When you gave your life to God, really gave it, not just the Sunday version but the daily version, the surrendered version, someone probably told you it was going to be okay.

And they were right.

But they left something out.

They did not tell you that before it gets better, it is going to get harder. They did not tell you that the closer you walk with God, the more resistance you will feel. They did not tell you that choosing to follow God closely is one of the most contested decisions you will ever make, and that the opposition does not come from strangers. It comes from every direction. Your job. Your family. Your own mind. Circumstances that seem designed to break your focus and test your faith at the exact moment you are trying to build it.

Nobody told you that.

They told you God is good. He is. They told you He has a plan. He does. They told you everything is going to work out. It will.

But they skipped the middle part. The part you are probably living right now.

The Storm Does Not Mean You Are Off Course

Here is the first thing nobody told you: when the storms in your life intensify after you commit to following God closely, that is not a sign that you made the wrong decision. It is a sign that you made the right one.

The enemy does not fight people who are not a threat.

Think about that for a moment. If you were drifting, distracted, and disconnected from God, you would not be worth attacking. A person who is not moving in any direction does not need to be stopped. But a person who is aligned, focused, and walking with purpose? That person gets attention.

The intensified warfare in your life right now, the relationship friction, the financial pressure, the unexpected obstacles, the mental heaviness, the feeling that everything is fighting you at once, is not random. It is targeted. And the fact that it is targeted means something important: you are on assignment.

The enemy knows what God has for you even when you do not. And he is trying to stop it before it starts.

What the Bible Actually Says

This is not a new experience. It is documented.

Paul, one of the most committed followers of God who ever lived, described being hard pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. He was shipwrecked. He was beaten. He was imprisoned. This was not happening to someone who had turned away from God. This was happening to someone who was running directly toward Him.

Job was not suffering because he had done something wrong. He was suffering because he was righteous. The attack came specifically because of how closely he walked with God.

Jesus himself, immediately after His baptism and before He began His public ministry, was led into the wilderness to be tested. Not after a season of disobedience. Right after the moment God publicly declared His pleasure in His Son.

The pattern is consistent throughout scripture: commitment to God does not eliminate opposition. It often invites it.

Nobody told you that in the pew. But it is in the book.

The Part That Is Also True

None of this means God has left you. None of it means the promise is canceled. None of it means you made a mistake by going all in.

What it means is that the storm you are in right now is not evidence of God's absence. It is evidence of your proximity to something significant.

God does not waste storms. Every one of them is doing something. Building endurance. Stripping what was never going to sustain you. Developing a trust that only gets forged under pressure. Moving you from a faith that is inherited or assumed to a faith that is tested and chosen, the kind that holds when everything around you is shifting.

Psalm 46:1 says God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Not an absence of trouble. A presence in it.

He is not trying to remove the storm. He is with you in it. And that is a different kind of promise, a better one, because it means no circumstance puts you outside of His reach.

What to Do With This Right Now

If you are in the middle of a storm today, if things have gotten harder since you committed to following God closely, if the pressure has intensified, if relationships have fractured, if doors have closed, if you feel like you are fighting on every front at once, here is what I want you to hold onto:

You are not off course. You are not being punished. You are not forgotten.

You are being forged.

The version of you that God is building does not get built in comfortable seasons. It gets built in exactly the kind of pressure you are under right now. And the fact that you are still here, still reading, still trying to make sense of what God is doing, that is not weakness. That is faith doing its work.

Stay in it. Keep showing up. Keep your eyes on the One who is with you in the storm rather than on the storm itself.

He has not moved. He is not surprised. And He is not done.

Know Your Role. Carry Your Light.

Before you close this post, sit with one question.

Some of you are being forged to move. You are being sent somewhere. The storm you are in is preparation for a place you are going to enter on behalf of someone who cannot get there without you. You feel the pull toward the darkness not because you are lost in it but because you are being equipped to go into it. You are a Lightbringer. The question God is building in you is not how do I get out of this. It is who needs the light I am carrying.

Some of you are being forged to remain. You are being strengthened at the root so that others can come back to you when they are broken. The storm you are enduring is not random. It is deepening you. Making you someone who can hold space, sustain hope, and keep the fire burning when everyone else is exhausted. You are a Lightbearer. The question God is building in you is not when will this end. It is how do I keep this light alive for the people who are still on their way home.

Neither is greater. Neither is lesser. Both serve the same light. Both are necessary for the same mission.

A Lightbringer enters the storm.
A Lightbearer keeps the lighthouse lit.

Without the lighthouse, the ship never finds its way back.
Without the ship, the lighthouse is burning for no one.

Ask yourself this week which one you are being built to be. You probably already know. The storm has been showing you the answer the whole time.

Know your role. Carry your light.

Coming Next Sunday

Next week, we are going into the breaking season, what it is, why God allows it, and how to hold your position when everything He gave you seems to be coming apart at the same time. If you have ever felt like God was dismantling the very things you believed He built, that post is for you.

A full Faith Resources section is coming to Alpha VI Battalion, including free faith resources, devotional tools, scripture cards by situation, and more built specifically for people who are walking through real things in real time. Stay tuned. It is being built for you right now.

In the meantime, every Sunday post in this series will be published right here on the blog. Bookmark this page. Share it with someone who is in a storm and does not have language for what they are going through yet.

Every Sunday. Real talk about the real walk.

Discipline. Faith. Mission. Impact.

Alpha VI Battalion  |  alphavibattalion.com

Share this post with someone who is in a storm right now and needs to know it is not the end of the story.