Seasons and Terrains with God
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- Hearing God through Music - October 24, 2017
Just like life, my life with God is often filled with seasons. There are times where it is fresh and new like spring. Other times it is crisp and refreshing like fall. It can be rejuvenating like the summer sun beating down on me. Sometimes it feels isolating and gloomy like the dead of winter.
My life with God can also reflect the different terrains of this earth. There are times I feel the peace of stillness sitting on a beach quietly listening to the waves lap on the shore. Other times, I feel close to God like I do on a mountain in Montana as the sun rises over the ridge. Sometimes, I find myself in the desert where I am searching and feel far from God and His people.
These past few years our family has seen a lot of change. We moved to a major city in a different state. We added a baby to our blended family, which has created a new dynamic for our family (and in 3 months we will add another baby). For the first time in 16 years, I am not working outside the home. Our two oldest girls have begun new school journeys in high school and middle school. I feel like I am not as involved with the youth at church because I have a one-year-old. Yet, I don’t feel like I fit with the young moms because I am an older mom with teenagers. I treasure inter-generational relationships, but it seems like they are more work to develop at a large church than at a small church where relationships sprang more organically.
I say all this to say that I have felt like I am navigating a spiritual desert. I am trying to find my place to serve. I am trying to seek real gut-level connections. I feel like my quiet times are stale and black and white when they used to be awakening and vibrant like the new colors of spring.
BUT–I know enough and have been through enough in life to know I need to hang on and keep doing what I know to be true and important. I need to remember that seasons come and go and that spiritual terrain changes. Without these changes, growth does not happen. Unfortunately, I don’t grow from easy stuff. So, I need to keep trying to connect. I need to stick with my quiet time. My God is a God of promises and he is a promise keeper.
Isaiah 43:19 ( International Standard Version)
“Watch! I’m about to carry out something new! And now it’s springing up— don’t you recognize it? I’m making a way in the wilderness and paths in the desert.”
What season or terrain are you experiencing with God? How has your faith matured through these seasons?
