It’s a different season of life for me, for us. I’ve lived seasons here. Lived seasons there. Lived seasons here with the heart to be there…
Don’t we do that? So easily, whether loudly or in our secret depths, wish and dream of something else? Sweating out summer months, aching for the cool and harvest and beauty of autumn. Begging for the warmth and resurrection of spring when we’re locked up in the throes of icy winter.
Not all of you live in four-seasons areas, and only know of them. I’m so thankful to have grown up in routine awareness of multiple seasons, and how they shift and morph. I do know some people who love those extreme seasons: the scorching heat of summer and the fresh stillness of cold winter. But I don’t know anyone without shelter that prefers them. Left exposed to them, the extremes are deadly.
Don’t we know it in so many ways? And when we live in the extremes of soul, of spirit, of body, we cry out to God for relief. Respite. Rest.
God is our refuge and strength, abundantly available for help in trouble. (Ps 46:1)
For your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:3)
There are times I wish for the understanding that farmers have in much more fullness. The Kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows -how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. (Mark 4:26-29)
These seasons keep changing, layered upon layer in various contexts of life: mine, my marriage’s, my children’s, my extra-family assignments. I’m planting, waiting, watching. Pulling a lot of weeds. Digging up rubbish and chasing out pests. My own little garden is very consuming, and I say in an acutely aware dependency, I’ve learned it is enough. What God gives is always enough. (2 Samuel 12:8b) Enough to be content with, to be grateful for, to be overwhelmed by, to be sustained in.
He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom He loves. (Ps 47:4)
To grow in. To discover in. To be shaped or pruned or straight cut-down in. To bear fruit in the midst of.
It’s been a season of suspension… a waiting, nurturing, hidden-ness in a sense. There is much to come, and I sense a growing anticipation of further development and change for this season, the longer I press in here. What exactly tomorrow will look like for me, I don’t know yet. But can I say how thankful I am for all the seasons, past and to come?
In just eighteen years trying to learn what it is to walk with Jesus I’ve seen days of passionate field-planning, vision-catching, risk-taking, heart-rending. Planted, cultivated, fertilized. Waited. Waited. Waited. Seen famine and seen flood. Seen harvests more bountiful than I could hold. Rested in fields of green with soft rain and blinding-beautiful foliage, and danced in the celebration of abundance. Grown faint in the fiery deserts that spanned impossible and impassable miles. Laid down and died in a dozen new ways, in the death-cold dark silence of winter. Been struck by hurricanes, and seen cleansing winds blow away debris too big for me to conceive. Made space for new life, and buried earthly life’s remains. Held such things in my hand, too sacred for me to have imagined, and given my heart to One too holy and good for my greatest hopes to fathom.
Can I say I am grateful? To You, Holy One of Israel. To the Living God. The One named Faithful and True. The God with us. The only wise God, our Savior. My Rock, my Hiding Place, my Wisdom, my Love, my Life. My lips will glorify You as long as I live. Apart from You I have no good thing. Who am I that You are mindful of me? Yet You’ve hidden me within Your very Self, named me with Your Name, and written my days. You see my smallness and assign my significance, and You alone are wise and good. All You do is right and true, and Your ways are too great for me to comprehend. Thank You, thank You.
And let me be found before Him in every season. Receiving the goodness of it, sowing seed that I-know-not-how-it-grows. Steadfast celebrating the nearness of my God, and waiting on Him for the growth and the harvest. I am at rest.
But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for Himself;
the Lord hears when I call to Him.
Be agitated and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be silent.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
and trust in the Lord…
You have put gladness in my heart,
more than when their grain and new wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:3-5,7-8)