When God starts chopping away at the branches of my life, I can’t say that I am full of joyful surrender. I typically resist the spiritual machete that starts swinging in my direction. I don’t want it. “God, you can keep your machete to yourself. I’ll happily live with overgrown branches and dead limbs.” But the reality is that life in the Spirit – life in sync with Christ – requires a life surrendered to the pruning seasons.

There is a natural ebb and flow to the life of a Christ-follower: Pruning and Fruit-bearing.

When there are too many dead branches or the limbs are hanging low, they will no longer produce fruit, or, the fruit will not be as sweet. A good farmer knows about pruning.

We had rose bushes galore in our garden in Malawi. They were absolutely breathtaking. The family that lived in the house before us had planted this rose garden. As I poured my morning cup of coffee, I would look out of the kitchen window and gaze on the rich and colorful roses…

…Until the fully blossomed roses dried up and fell to the ground…one petal at time. Eventually, as the weeks progressed, the thorny branches of the rose bushes started growing in all kinds of directions. And they rarely produced any roses.

I’m not a gardener. I, honestly, have no idea how to keep any type of plant alive. As was confirmed in the case of our roses, I was clueless to the fact that the branches needed to be pruned in order for the roses to come back to life. I thought “the bigger the better”, but apparently that is not true…not true at all.

Our day guard came to me one day and asked me if I would mind if he cut the branches down. Kindly, he explained that the reason the roses were not blooming was because they needed to be pruned. No fruit could be produced until pruning had taken place. I gave him the go ahead to do whatever needed to be done to bring the roses back to life. After cutting them back, to what looked like baby bushes, and after some rain and cultivating of the soil, the rose bushes blossomed in full once again.

Pruning is a gift in the wilderness season of transition.

The empty nothingness of the in-between is often the perfect time for God to get into our lives and start pruning out the old and dead branches. This pruning is deep and, often, painful work.

“I feel like I got shot out of a cannon and straight into a plate glass window. I’m still pulling out shards of glass. I’m not sure how long it is going to take to heal.”

Joel shared this with me during one of our weekly breakfast dates. Still reeling from the pain and hurt he experienced in Malawi, it seemed like the process of healing was taking its sweet time. God wasn’t/isn’t done with the pruning.

When we are looking out upon the wilderness of transition it is not merely a vast nothingness that doesn’t make sense, but it is purposeful in the shedding of the old identity and claiming the new one. Part of the shedding process is pruning the old away so that the new can grow. It is imperative for this to happen. And so, we feel pain in the in-between, but that pain is a gift from God.

In John chapter 15 Jesus is challenging us to surrender to the pruning process. He is comforting us, even though it is painful, with the profound truth that in order to grow, in order to produce lasting and rich fruit, we must give ourselves completely to the pruning process:

“I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit…”

John 15:1

There are branches in our lives that are not fruit bearing branches. It is God’s grace that offers to cut them out so that we are no longer enslaved to the superfluous materials and waste that clutter up our hearts, minds, focus and purposes. He cuts off every branch – every distraction and hidden issue – that does not bear fruit. What an incredible gift.

The in-between season in transition is probably the most vulnerable of stages in the process. Everything is laid bare. We can’t hide our dead and fruitless branches from anyone. While we may have been able to block out those hidden things behind our old identities and our old successes, when we step out of that place of comfort every single part of our souls become exposed.

And God graciously uses this time to cut off the dead branches.

“…while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

John 15:1

Guess what…not every branch and every limb needs to be chopped. This is good news! In spite of ourselves, if we are walking with Christ and abiding in Christ, we will produce fruit. This is encouraging to me. However, like my rose bushes in Malawi, in order for the plant to continue to grow and become even more fruitful, it had to be pruned.

In his book, “Building a Discipling Culture”, Mike Breen discusses the natural rhythms of life in our spiritual journey. Like a pendulum that moves from one side to the other in a focused rhythm and steady speed, so our lives move from pruning to growing. Both seasons are necessary for ongoing growth and fruitfulness. He also likens this process to the balance of rest and work. These seasons of pruning – that we surmise as punishment or discipline or something painful to be avoided – are actually seasons of rest.

The pruning season allows us to rest in submission to the purposeful work God is longing to do in us spiritually. He prunes back the fruitful branches. Yes, we had experienced a great season of fruitfulness in our previous ministry and identities. We can point to specific victories that bolster our faith and give us the confidence to move forward. But to move forward and into an increased season of fruit bearing, even those past victories must be pruned. And the best way to walk through this process is to surrender to it and rest in it.

Breathe.

Take a Sabbath rest.

Inventory the areas that God is pruning, and let them go. Allow him access to every single fruit bearing branch.

Because, the next season to come is growth.

How do we do this? How do we allow this pruning process to take over?

Simple:

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (emphasis mine).”

John 15:5

The first gift we receive from the wilderness of transition is pruning. The way to allow God full access to work out this process is by abiding and remaining in him. The fruit we bore in the past, and the fruit we will bear in the future, are not harvests we can manufacture on our own. This fruit is from God. Apart from him we bear nothing but dried up dead branches.

I don’t want leftover fruit. I want fresh fruit to grow out of my life and the only way to accomplish that is to remain steadfast in Christ. He is the vine…he is the source and the resource…apart from him I can do nothing.

Recognizing this and embracing this process will set you up to move into your new identity and your new beginning with humility and grace.

The wilderness is not a final destination, and neither is the pruning season. We were not meant to live in either of these stages forever. There will be many more in-between seasons to navigate throughout our lives, just as there will be regular seasons of pruning. Walk slowly and rest in the gift of the pruning zone.  Allow God’s work to be accomplished, and keep your eyes focused on Jesus.

Our daughter, Sydney, would often get completely stressed out when learning something new at school. She lived with this misguided perception that she needed to be capable of operating in a skill, whether in math or language arts, before the material had been presented. She would feel anxious and place unnecessary pressure on herself when learning something new wasn’t grasped immediately or easily. There were many, many nights when Joel and I would sit with her as she wrestled her way through the emotions of fear, anger, and disappointment because of this false narrative in her mind. She didn’t understand that the whole point of going to school was to learn something new. She wasn’t in school to prove that she already knew complex fractions and how to diagram a sentence. She was in school to learn.

Anytime we do something new there is a learning curve. There is a space between starting and finishing, and the length of that space is unpredictable. It all depends on the level of complexity of the new skill, and all of the external factors – predictable and unpredictable – in which one is trying to learn this new skill.

There are many difficulties that we face in the middle of the wilderness season. There are curve balls that get thrown our way at our most vulnerable moments. Wrestling with the fear of looking incompetent is a true struggle in the middle of transition. Oftentimes, it is not the actual work that catches us off-guard, but the context in which we are doing this work that compounds the challenge and brings us into a complete state of humility (and I use that word “humility” not in the spiritual sense of a “humble heart”, but in the sense of “I have completely humiliated myself because I look inept trying to do something I’ve been doing for 20 years, but somehow here, in this context, I can’t even figure out how to spell my name” kind of humility). Learning new things can be humiliating. Especially when you are midway in your career and there is a “felt” expectation that you can perform at a significantly higher capacity than your younger counterparts.

But transition is not selective. Transition doesn’t care how many acronyms one has at the end of their name or how many years’ experience you carry on your resume. Transition doesn’t choose favorites. Transition will highlight one’s weaknesses and push all of the strengths to the bottom of the heap. Learning how to do something new, learning how to adapt to new rhythms, new structures, new cultures, new driving systems, new organizational flowcharts and protocols, is confusing, humiliating and stressful. The fear of looking incompetent will bubble up when it is least expected.

I was standing at the checkout station at one of our grocery markets in Malawi, Africa. The cashier rang up all of the items I was purchasing, and while I could see the total on the register, in my stress I could not read the number of zeros in the total. I tried to pay with my debit card, but the internet was not working (a very common issue), and I was going to have to pay with cash. At that time, the conversion rate from Kwacha to Dollars was K780 to $1. So, for instance, if I was buying $50 worth of groceries, the total in Kwacha would be approximately K39,000. That is a lot of Kwacha. To add to the complexity of it, the largest denomination they have is a K2000 bill. I cannot remember the total of my groceries on that particular day, but there were many zeros behind the number, and I found myself panicking as I was counting out my Kwacha in order to pay the bill.

An older and seasoned missionary had advised me to never pull my money out of my purse in public when counting out the Kwacha. She had also given me a little “Kwacha hack” – to divide the Kwacha into bundles of K10,000 so that, when paying a large sum, one could pull out the bundles and not have to rummage through counting out K39,000 in front of a large group of spectators.

On this particular day, even with my K10,000 bundles, my brain went blank and I couldn’t count, I couldn’t make out the total on the register, and I started to panic. I ended up handing the cashier all of the Kwacha I had in my purse so that she could count it out for me. She looked at me like I was insane, and I kind of was. My heart was pounding, beads of sweat were starting to drip down the side of my face, and I had a massive lump in my throat. The cashier began counting out the bills and returned to me a stack of unnecessary Kwacha. I have no idea what the people in the queue behind me were thinking, and by that point, I simply didn’t care. I just wanted to get the whole experience over with and get out of there as quickly as possible.

In this moment, I felt completely incompetent. Everything seemed upside down. For a split second, I could see just how much I was mentally, physically, and emotionally adapting.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me a year to figure out a system for paying for groceries and any other item I needed to purchase. While it wasn’t one big moment of enlightenment in which I figured my way out, it was, rather, that I grew into a new way of thinking, processing, and navigating the various situations I found myself in. It happened in time, but I had to embrace the reality of my incompetence and not allow that to break me or cause me to pull back. I had to keep going to the grocery store, continue to swallow my pride, and step back up to bat every single day.

Transition – this wilderness season of change – is a time of learning something new. Not much will come naturally. It will take time to decouple from the old way of doing normal to a new way of doing normal. And it will require humility. It will take all of one’s accomplishments and bury them deep underneath incompetency. The soul will have to learn how to surrender and be at peace with the process.

I know this may come across rather simplistic and theoretical. I know if I read something like what I’ve just written, I would probably wonder about the nitty-gritty of wrestling with the fear of looking incompetent. I would need some practical tools to guide me through all the discomforts of this particular component of transition. So, I am going to share a few actions steps that Joel and I took when we faced the reality of our incompetence.

Seek out safe people.

There were three missionary families that became guideposts for Joel and me throughout those early months in Malawi. They were all from different mission organizations, and they had Malawi experience that ranged from eight months to almost 15 years. Each family had insights and experience that filled in many gaps in the learning curve. While they couldn’t predict how various lessons would play out in such an unpredictable context, they could speak to the emotional and mental challenges we were working though. They became our resources for anything from schooling for our children to finding a language tutor, to visa challenges to those vulnerable moments of “I think I’m losing my mind and I just need to vent”. They were safe. They loved Jesus. And for some reason that I can’t quite understand, they loved us enough to bring us into their circle. Safe people won’t judge you when you look incompetent or are having a tough day. They won’t look at your deficiencies as character flaws, but as a normal part of the transition process. Seek these kinds of people out. They will be your life preservers.

Lower your expectations.

Most individuals who make it through the process of full missionary appointment are go-getters. They are self-driven and self-leading. They have proven their competence by jumping through the many hoops it takes to become fully appointed missionaries. They have taken multiple psychological assessments, written out pages of personal history, sat through interviews, allowed their flaws to be highlighted and discussed, read stacks of books, and sat through hours of training. These individuals are not slackers. And, I would imagine, live with high personal expectations.

While this is all good and admirable, when such individuals hit the field with the same high level of personal expectation, it can be devastating when they hit the wall of incompetency. It will feel like running into a plate glass window.

“What happened to me?”

“Why can’t I seem to get into the rhythm of this new life/culture/language/routine?”

“I feel so slow.”

“I can’t keep my eyes open past 7pm.”

“I’m hitting a wall.”

“I’m confused and disoriented.”

These are all normal feelings and experiences. They are part-and-parcel of transition. If you feel like your world has just been shaken up and chaos abounds, then know that this is normal. And it is okay to lower your expectations for a little while. Set smaller goals for yourself. Take inventory of what is critical and what can sit on a shelf momentarily. Sometimes the critical stuff is not the fun stuff- like working through the visa process or facing cultural barriers. It would be much more fulfilling to jump into the things that are safe and do not create a state of vulnerability or humility for ourselves. We, by nature, want to look strong. However, in order to push through this particular phase of transition, vulnerability and humility are essential. Lower your expectations for excellence and surrender to the learning process.

Embrace your weaknesses and lean into Jesus.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul writes in humility and vulnerability about the weaknesses he faces, and his complete dependence upon the grace of God. He says in verses 8-10:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me (this thorn in the flesh – this struggle – weakness – something that caused him great distress but is never clarified as to what this “thorn in the flesh” actually was). But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Facing the reality of our incompetence is essentially facing the reality of our weaknesses. With so many leadership buzz words and strategies and all the things that fill our heads and hearts and weigh us down, it is tempting to try and cover up our incompetency with skill and tactics that perpetuate this need to hide what is really going on inside of us. The truth in all of this is that we are weak people. And when thrust into an inconsistent and volatile environment, stripped of our previous identities and coping mechanisms, we have to embrace the reality of our weaknesses. When we land on the mission field, the only way to survive is to allow the vulnerability we are feeling to be exposed. We would all say that Paul was a great man of God. We wouldn’t argue with that statement. From our side of history, we see how God took this ordinary man, with all his weaknesses and flaws, and turned those flaws into a powerful expression of God’s work through him.

But he was weak.

Paul had flaws.

Paul needed Jesus.

As simplistic as this may sound, we have to lean on Jesus every single step of the painful and humiliating journey of incompetence and transition. Will you fall down and mess up and look frail and scattered and disjointed? Absolutely. Yes. Emphatically, yes. It will be the most painful part of the process.

And that is why we need Jesus so much. After we fall, we get back up and we allow God to strengthen us through our weaknesses and use us in spite of them. I think that is one of the most mystifying realities to me – that God could use me in spite of all the ways I mess up and fall down and fail.

I relate to Paul. I don’t count myself as a great leader or great missionary or even completely mentally stable (half-joking). I know how far I fail on the daily. And yet, God still chooses to use me. To use Joel. To use our family. It is mind-blowing. I think to myself, “Wow…if God can use us, then it is not a half-hearted notion that he can use anybody.”

As you wrestle through the fear of looking incompetent, give yourself the grace to rest in God’s strength and allow him to work through your weaknesses. Whether the daunting task of language learning, or the discomfort of working with people you don’t really click with. Allow him to strengthen you, refresh you, refine you, and do his work in spite of you.

Isaiah 40:29 became an anchor verse to me during our first year on the mission field. I still cling to it because it is a precious reminder to me that I am not alone, and that it is okay to admit incompetency. It says:

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.”

While I don’t have the time to go into the full history of this Scripture and walk you through the context in which Isaiah was prophesying, I will say this: the character of God from the day those words were spoken and written down is the same today.

God has not changed, and he continues to prove himself true to us – to be our strength, to increase our power when we are at our weakest – even when, in the eyes of man, we don’t deserve it.

His promise of strength and power will see us through the fears, the anxieties and the many moments of incompetency. We can forego the wrestling match, and lean into his grace that is all-sufficient, humble ourselves in those vulnerable and exposed moments, and allow his power to enable us to get back up and try and try again.
Remember, in this season of transition we are learning something new.

And here’s a little curve ball I’m going to throw your way…we will always be learning something new. Always. There is no finish line to the unknowns and our incompetency. For every new thing we learn, there will be a hundred more that we have yet to discover.

So, as you navigate through the early stages of transition, don’t forget to…

Find your safe people.

Lower your expectations.

Embrace your weaknesses.

And lean hard into Jesus.

The Least.

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.”

Mark 12:41-43

She didn’t have much. In fact, she didn’t have anything of significant monetary value.

She was a widow, and she was poor.

And she was among the crowd of people coming to the temple to give their offerings. The wealthy made a big show of it, tossing their large sums of money into the temple treasury. She, on the other hand, made no demonstrative display of her gift when she dropped two small copper coins – such a coin was called a lepton, meaning “thin one” – into the treasury. This was not a fat offering. It was, literally, a very lean gift.

Perhaps, as Jesus and his disciples sat on the other side of this scene, nothing looked out-of-the-ordinary. I imagine there were a number of people, walking through the queue, waiting their turn to submit their offerings. This poor widow, most likely obscure in the hustle and bustle of the crowd around her, elicited no extra attention or admiration. She dropped her coins and moved along in the river of humanity.

But Jesus saw her. He didn’t just see her; he pointed her out. He paid significant attention to this woman, invisible to the world.

Jesus does that.

He sees the hidden treasures around us, and he redirects our focus. His heart is drawn to the least of these. He doesn’t praise them because of their lowly status, but he acknowledges and affirms their actions despite their status.

The widow woman, holding her entire earthly wealth in her hands, tossed it all into the offering.

She gave out of her poverty – the least of everyone.

Yet, Jesus said she gave the most.

The kingdom that Jesus taught about throughout his ministry was an upside-down – paradox to the human understanding of greatness – kind of kingdom.

If you want to be great, then you must become a servant – the least of these.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

Mark 9:35

When he made this statement to the disciples, he didn’t leave anything out. He was clear and direct. This wasn’t a coaching session on how to become a great leader. It was a difficult conversation speaking to the condition of the disciples’ hearts (the condition of our hearts as well) and expressing this hard-to-swallow kingdom mindset of lowering ourselves to title-less servants of Christ. He gave them no false promises that if they become the very last that they will be servant leaders of all. No. Jesus was very serious about this issue. In fact, rather than teach and express this significant kingdom principle by walking and talking, he sat them down. It was as if he was saying to them, “This is a lesson I don’t want you to miss. If you miss this, you miss everything.” He plainly and intentionally communicated that the greatest, in God’s sight, are the least: the ones who serve, and whose highest ambition is to serve like Christ.

And then he told them that if they sought for greatness in his Kingdom they must find it, not by being first, but by being last; not by being masters, but by being servants of all. It was not that Jesus abolished ambition. Rather, he recreated and sublimated ambition. For the ambition to rule, he substituted the ambition to serve. For the ambition to have things done for us, he substituted the ambition to do things for others.

William Barclay

This way of Jesus shoots straight to the heart. While the disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest, Jesus was always – always- redirecting their gaze…their attention…to the least. We cannot hold on to our self-righteousness when we sit this close to Jesus. His ways are so far beyond ours- the complete and utter opposite of our natural inclinations.

“They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

Mark 12:44

The widow woman…who gave her “thin one” to God, gave more than any person who showed up to church that day. The wealthy gave out of their wealth. It is not a sacrifice when there is a deep reservoir to continue to draw from. She, on the other hand, gave all that she had…what might have been useful for oil, or flour, or some form of shelter. Her gift that day was a treasure far weightier than any sack of money poured into the temple bucket. In Christ’s upside-down kingdom, she would be considered “greatest”.

But I don’t think that this kind of greatness is a title that many of us are keen on snatching up. How many of us are truly prepared to be the least- to give an offering that won’t gain us significant earthly approval? How many of us are honestly willing to become servants without promise of promotion?

These are big questions.

This was what Jesus wanted his disciples to grasp.

It is what he wants us to internalize and hold firmly to today.

The greatest is Jesus.

We recognize that not one of us can carry the weight that he carried, so why do we attempt to place man on a scale of greatness when Jesus is part of the equation? Are any one of us prepared to take on the sin of the world and sacrifice our lives on a cross for the redemption of all mankind? It is difficult for me to lay down my life for my husband and family…I’m selfish, and I get tired and irritated and struggle with feelings of entitlement. Can you relate? Even when I do surrender and push aside my selfish will, I find I have to continuously lay my ambitions at the foot of the cross. This act of surrender is a daily act of obedience.

Greatness in God’s eyes is not the pursuit of greatness, but the pursuit of the cross-bearing life; choosing to lay our lives down for others and serving them with the willingness to sacrifice any hope of earthly greatness in the act of giving. It is about our hearts.

In both of these stories, we see that Jesus is shifting the paradigm. It has nothing to do with wealth and poverty in the natural sense, but about the wealth and poverty of the soul. How much are we willing to sacrifice and surrender to God? Greatness has nothing to do with titles and hierarchy, but about laying down our lives for the sake of others; becoming servants of all. Period.

There was a profound difference between a servant and a slave in biblical times. A slave was one who was owned by another person, taken against their will and forced into servitude. A servant, on the other hand, was a person who voluntarily chose to serve. Jesus came, not to be a slave, but he came on his own free will to serve…to give his life. And Jesus exhorted his disciples, and exhorts us today, not to live as slaves but to live as servants; freely giving our lives and our treasure, our gifts and our ambition to Jesus and his purposes.

When we place ourselves in proper alignment to Jesus Christ, we see that we really are the least. That even the greatest accomplishments and skills, gifts, and offerings we offer are like the widow woman’s lepton, “thin one”. While we can never match the sacrifice that Christ made for the world, we can take our two small copper coins – the little we do have – and give it all in service to Jesus. We can humble ourselves to the status of servants.

God honors the least. It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. The math will never add up…it will never equal the greatness that we so often seek. But it is the way of Jesus. It is the way of good. It is the hope this world has. I am so inspired to give my “thin one” to Jesus- to be counted as the least. If it draws me closer to Jesus – to his heart…to his character…to deeper intimacy – then let me be a servant of all.

Humility is the mark of Christ. It is the way of power used rightly. It is Godlike to serve in humility. He who sits on the throne was the servant of all while here, and on the throne he continues to serve us by his Spirit. We must know him well and deeply if his work is to be accomplished.

Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church

Ordinary is highly under-rated.

It seems the sincere longing for significance has pushed past contentment in doing a job well done, to that of being a world changer…influencer…and platform-creator. It is not enough, anymore, to do the hard and consistent daily work of investing our lives into meaningful, yet oftentimes, ordinary endeavors. Today, we are driven to be seen…to be heard…to position ourselves for greater significance and greater influence. Ordinary is boring and old-school, and it certainly doesn’t illicit the kind of attention that so many of us are seeking today.

And yet, there is something extraordinary about the ordinary.

My days are not so impressive on the outside. In this season of life, I am in the throes of child-rearing, home-managing and integrating culture into the impressionable minds and hearts of our children. I grocery shop, do the laundry, plan meals for the week, cook, clean, pack lunches, help with homework, create schedules, maintain order, educate my children on the importance of table manners and etiquette (this is never-ending work!), balance the checkbook, keep the budget, go on coffee dates with Joel and the kids, and oversee the day-in/day-out lives of my family, while developing relationships and ongoing connections with the people in our sphere.  It’s not all that exciting.

It is very ordinary.

And while my calendar boasts of a very ordinary life, there is something quite extraordinary happening between the lines and the dates, the appointments and the pen strokes. The lives of our children are being shaped, formed, developed, and discipled. Within the ordinary, God is doing extraordinary work. It is tempting to want to create for myself a profile that makes me look special and significant, but in doing so, it minimizes the good work that is taking place within the constraints of the ordinary. Ordinary is highly under-rated. Ordinary invites the time and space for deeper relationships, honest conversations, and focused attention.

Maybe I am feeling inspired to write this because I need to remind myself of these timeless truths, and maybe there is someone out there that needs to read it too. Maybe we both need the gentle reminder that our significance is not written in the headlines, but rooted in the ordinary work we are doing right now…in this moment…at the dinner table…in the bedtime prayers…in the middle of the meltdown…during those car ride conversations and marathon Lego days…in the tone of that email…or the slow pace of the project we’ve been overseeing. We need that little voice pulling us out of the drive for external significance and back into the precious gift of these ordinary days.

While the world craves more hype, more incentives to participate, more flash, more enticements and rewards, my heart is craving a more quiet and ordinary life. The world is temperamental…it shifts too quickly and too impulsively. The world (and this includes the church/ministry world) is becoming more and more addicted to performance – lights, cameras, action. Trying to keep up with it all creates instability, insecurity and a frenetic pace that eventually leads to burn out. I am, quite bluntly, less impressed with all the hype, glam and glitz, and more drawn to the daily and consistent rhythms of the ordinary.

The world is saying, “Speed up!” and my heart is saying, “Slow down!”.

Christ’s life was, in many regards, ordinary. He talked to his followers, not about how to build a platform or create a movement, but about bearing the weight of the cross. His invitation was to pick up their cross and follow him, and through the New Testament Scriptures, we know where that path led them…not to fame, fortune or a flashy title, but to suffering, marginalization, and death. The ordinary means – producing extraordinary fruit – of walking with people, listening, daily discipleship and the cross of suffering was, and still is, the way of Christ.

Obedience to God’s ways of bringing about the kingdom is the only way, even when those ways seem small, obscure, and weak. Even when no one notices. Even when our kingdom work can’t be captured and packaged for a ready-made inspirational social media update. Someone earnestly desiring to do great things for God can have all the right motives but all the wrong mechanisms. Jesus’ obedience tells us that mechanisms matter – if godly ends are pursued by ungodly means, the whole project will be ruined.

– Katelyn Beaty, Celebrities for Jesus

I have thought a lot about the cost of obedience and the return to the ordinary.

Obedience is, in the very truest sense, letting go of our own will and surrendering it to Jesus. There is nothing very glamourous about that. We step off of platforms rather than hoist ourselves up to be seen.

There are men and women caught up in the fast running current of trying to find significance through extraordinary means. There are a great number, I can only imagine, that want to do great things for God, and wrestle with the ordinary days in which they are living. There is an altruistic desire to please God, while at the same time a fear that a hidden life in Christ will amount to being forgotten by the world.

And yet, if we really want to get down to it…to the reality of what following and serving Christ is all about it comes to this:

He must become greater; I must become less.

John 3:30

That statement: I must become less, is not a directive to become less than who God has created you to be; that somehow wallowing in the dirt and lowering oneself to nothingness is the key to pleasing God. But rather, becoming less is putting ourselves in the right order and right place with God. It is releasing the striving and driving towards worldly acceptance and acknowledgement into God’s hands, and taking the ordinary tasks that he gives us each day and carrying them out to the best of our ability so that God gets the glory…God gets the greatness…so that God is seen above our talents, gifts and charisma.

In my ordinary days I find such encouragement when I see that God is using me to disciple and shape our children to follow Christ. That’s a big deal. It’s not always visible to the outside world. This is a slow and weighty work.

Your ordinary will look different than mine, but it is incredibly significant. It is the means by which God will do extraordinary things. It may never make the headlines, and it may never evoke a rush on social media, but if your ordinary work points the world to Christ and brings Him glory, then it is extraordinary.

The significance of the ordinary is not how amazingly we can do it, or how creatively we can brand it; the significance is that this is how God chooses to do his most astounding work; His quiet, steady, and world-changing work. He uses you and me. He takes the materials in our hands, the season of our lives, our brokenness and all of our flaws, and says, “Follow me.”

Stop striving.

Slow down.

Let the God do the extraordinary through our ordinariness.

It is God who makes us significant, not all the kingdoms we create.

Rest in that.

And rest in the precious gift of these ordinary days.

New year. New word. New focus.

This year my word is “Recalibrate”.

“Recalibrate” is not a word that I particularly like. It doesn’t immediately jump out to me or inspire me. It’s the kind of word that Joel would choose, or my dad. To me, it sounds very masculine, not very poetic (and I love poetic words!).

Still, at the beginning of December, when my thoughts turned to the anticipation of a new year, this word kept coming to mind. I couldn’t shake it. And when I slowed down long enough to look a little more intentionally at the word “recalibrate”, I started to see its significance for my life.

In order to appreciate the meaning of “recalibrate”, we have to take a look its root word: “calibrate”.

Calibrate is a verb. It indicates the act of measuring something. Merriam-Webster defines “calibrate” as “to make standard (as a measuring instrument) by finding out and correcting for the differences from an accepted or ideal value”.

In other words, when we calibrate something, we are looking at an accepted value and then correcting what we have in order to fit that ideal. When this something begins to slip off track, when it drifts off course, we do the act of recalibrating…getting it back on track.

I think the most significant part of the definition is looking at the “ideal value”. I have to ask myself, what is the “ideal value” that I am recalibrating myself to? This is something to ponder.

In our noisy world, polluted with opinions, self-help books and podcasts all declaring their own ideal value, it is critical to pull away from it all in order to gain clarity. The true picture of what is ideal can get fuzzy if we are looking into our culture for direction. The ideal value will never be found in a program or a person. Man-made ideals will continuously leave us fractured and inadequate. Cultures and systems and structures built around personalities and preferences will only lead to discouragement, fallout and failure. People get hurt in personality-driven ideals.

So, where do we find this “ideal value”? To what are we calibrating and recalibrating ourselves? We have definitely drifted off course, so what do we do and where do we go from here?

In the process of growing up…getting older (and hopefully wiser), I am more and more convinced that the simplicity of God’s word is the compass that keeps us on the trajectory of our true north…our true path…our ideal value. Even as a Christ-follower, it is easy to veer off and into ideals that are not truly God’s ideal. They may not be bad, but they are not the best.

To find the “ideal value” we look to the “ideal”, and that is Jesus Christ. If you are a Christ- follower, like me, then the Holy Spirit dwells within us. We are image bearers of our Savior. The Bible tells us that the world will know us by our fruit. The outpouring of our lives should be the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Christ embodied each one of these…he was a living picture of the fruit of the Spirit. Our “ideal value” is to be the same…to pursue a life that models Christ, and Christ alone.

We must re-calibrate to Christ’s “ideal value”.

In addition to this, Christ has given us the priceless gift of discernment: the Holy Spirit. I worry that this gift has gotten shoved into a corner and is becoming more and more obsolete in our fast-paced world that yearns for instant gratification and celebrity platforms. Discernment calls us to pause, pray, and consider. We can’t rush wisdom and discernment. We have to be willing to patiently wait as God brings clarity and peace.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

John 16:13

The gift of discernment is the act of listening to that still, small voice inside of us (the Holy Spirit) that warns us when something is off, that brings conviction when we have veered off course, and leads us gently along the path that God has prepared for us – it is the gift of truth. The Holy Spirit guides us in all truth, which sets us free as we follow Christ. This discernment ensures that we are calibrated to the “ideal value”; it is the “measuring instrument” that keeps us on course. We cannot do this life, this God-honoring work of discipleship, without it.

And this is where, and to what, I feel driven to recalibrate. This obedience – a long obedience in the same direction (Eugene Peterson) – to the leading, prompting, directing and ministry of the Holy Spirit within me. This is not some super-spooky-natural new age practice. It is, frankly, the fundamentals of living the Christian life. And this is where I sense the Lord leading me. Recalibrate to the “ideal value”, which is Jesus Christ. No more people pleasing, no more playing a role that doesn’t fit, and no more living outside my values. This year will be about listening more intentionally to the still, small voice inside of me, and recalibrating my attention and my life to God’s ideal value.

And, my hope and sincere desire, is to open up my heart and share very transparently my journey here. If you have been broken, my prayer is that, in this space, you will find a safe place to land. If you have been hurt, may you find refuge and healing through Jesus Christ, and in the safety of this community. And if you, too, feel the urgency to recalibrate, may grace abound as you seek to follow and obey, to set your eyes on the ideal value, and allow the Holy Spirit to do His ongoing work of aligning you to the truth. This year promises blessings and challenges. And it also promises God’s faithfulness and goodness each step of the way.

Recalibrating in 2023.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

Christmas is here, and I find myself wondering: how did that happen? Did we really plow through twelve months of rainy seasons, dry seasons, cold seasons, heat, flooding, traffic jams, school days, sport events, haircuts, doctor’s appointments, and all the little things crammed into the open spaces of our calendars? How is that even possible?

And yet, here we are. Another year. Another Christmas.

In some ways, it has gone by very quickly; in other ways, it has felt incredibly slow and arduous.

I’m going to be honest. I am weary. I’ve been living in “weary” for quite some time. I need rest. My soul needs rest, and I am finding glimpses of freedom in acknowledging this. My defenses are down. I’m becoming comfortable with this reality.

While I’m not waving a flag of victory and dancing my way into Christmas- and the year ahead- I am consciously more settled in my soul – now more than ever – with the conviction that God is God, and I am not. The flag I am waving looks more like surrender. My role in this grand story is to live a life honoring and representing Christ in the best and most authentic way possible. And the way I can do this is to take his yoke upon myself – to learn from him the deeper practice of trust and resiliency – and to keep my gaze fixed on Christ.

I want my life marked, not by doing everything perfectly, or handling each challenging situation without flaw or with a track record of exceptional strength, but marked by working out my faith in weakness and humility, surrender to God, and never giving up. In the weariness, there is rest.

Jesus calls the weary to himself. He does not call the self-sufficient, nor those with the proper religious credentials or perfect, Instagram-able lives. He calls those exhausted from toil, from just getting through the day. He calls those burdened with heavy loads, those weighed down by sin and sorrow. It is these, not the confident and successful, to whom Jesus says, “Come to me.”

Prayer in the Night, by Tish Harrison Warren

It has been a year, and I need Immanuel. I need his closeness…his nearness.

Weary and worn, my hope…my peace…my joy and my heart are living in the childlike wonder that Immanuel is here – that his promise to never leave us is a promise kept, and that his invitation to “Come” has not expired.

Throughout this Advent season we’ve made space to reflect upon the hope we have in Christ’s promise, the peace that anchors us in a world of chaos and sin, the joy as we look to something – Someone – greater to come, and the delight in being so loved by our Savior. We’ve welcomed the anticipation and we’ve leaned in hard to the steadfast truth that holds us in our weariness.

Today is Christmas Day. The long-awaited Messiah has arrived. We no longer wait in suffering and silence but hold his promises close.

He says “Come” to the burned out, the broken, the tired, the hurt, the grieving and the hopeful. He is the Savior for the weary, the long-suffering and the lost. And he invites us to take his yoke…to learn and trust…to rest in his presence.

He is God with us.

Immanuel.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. One variation of this song begins with this line: “I’m dreaming tonight of a place I love even more than I usually do…”. Every time I hear this, my thoughts are instantly transported to my grandparents’ old farmhouse in Wellston, Ohio at Christmastime. I can see the tree in the corner of the living room, and I can smell my grandmother’s baking in her little farmhouse kitchen. It’s like time stands still for a moment. Christmas at Nanny and Ba’s house- some of the most precious childhood memories I have. It makes me feel homesick, not just for that old house, and my grandma’s baking, and my grandpa’s endless teasing, but homesick for a moment in time that felt warm and cozy and safe. Homesick for a feeling. A feeling of “home.”

The topic of “home” has been a recurring theme in my life over the past few months. Where is home? What is home? Is home a place, an idea, or a feeling? What is it?

If you were my son, Jasper, your connection to home might be family. He had to do a little project for school about all the different kinds of homes there are in the world. We brainstormed, and he came up with a long list of all the various types of homes that are possible: wood homes, stone homes, brick homes, glass homes, ice homes, etc.. His list was long. The next part of the project was to talk about his own home. Once he described what he believed his home was made of – brick and wood – he then went on to explain what he loved about his home- what makes it special to him. Interestingly, he didn’t talk about specific features, but rather, it was his family that made his home so special to him. For Jasper, it was family that defined home, more so than wood and brick.

As a missionary, I often find myself wrestling with this idea of “home.” It feels uncertain because of the unstable nature of this kind of life. I try my best to plant roots and dig in deep wherever I am, but there is always this reality – way back in my mind – that all of this is temporary. Even now, as we look ahead to itineration in approximately six months, “home” is already being disrupted by the anticipation of our upcoming transition.

I was listening to a speaker recently unpack this topic of “home” to a group of fellow missionary women. She shared about a time when she was attending a high school graduation in Nairobi, Kenya. The graduation speaker, who was a third culture kid, asked the question, “What is home?” Later, she answered the question by saying, “God is home.”

This really struck me.

God is home.

Brooklyn and I were out for one of our coffee dates, and she opened up to me about some of the things she’s been processing lately. She is a senior in high school and is looking ahead at a lot of big transitions in her life. Like I mentioned earlier, itineration is just around the corner for our family, but even more startling is the reality that Brooklyn’s transition doesn’t end when she leaves South Africa. She will be in an ongoing state of transition as she begins university in August of next year. For her, this feeling of unsettledness is profound. There is so much uncertainty. And she made a comment to me that nowhere feels like home.

South Africa, while it is her current address, doesn’t feel like home to her. She doesn’t feel as connected to it as she did to our home in Portland, Oregon. And yet, Portland doesn’t feel like home either. It is has changed. Everything that made it “home” to her has completely flipped upside-down, and her connection to a place that would seemingly be home to her feels very foreign.

As we were talking ,two things came to my mind: First, I remembered the message I listened to that encouraged us that “God is home,” and second, thankfully we can say that our “family is home.”

Nothing is constant, except God. And while I am grateful that I have a family that is secure, stable, authentic, and a safe place to land, I realize that rooting myself/ourselves in family can’t always meet that need for “home”, but God can. Because God is constant. When we are rooted in him, we are secure. He keeps us and he holds us. He anchors us when life threatens to blow us over. He is faithful.

I don’t think this concept applies only to missionaries and third-culture kids. I think it is universal to all Christ-followers. How often do we look around at the world, or even the city we live in, and feel so very foreign? How often do we wonder where exactly we fit in? And how many times do we struggle to find a place that feels right and whole and “home?” My guess is that we don’t feel these things very often. Maybe you are fortunate enough to be a part of a body of believers that gives you a living picture of safety and security and fulfills that longing for home. Like my family, it is a place of rest and peace and trust. Or maybe the body you have been connected to has been dysfunctional, and it has disappointed you, and you are thinking to yourself, “Is there really such a thing as a healthy church family?” Regardless, I would guess that many of us, whether in healthy or unhealthy environments, feel very foreign in this world. And those feelings are very valid.

Earth is not our home; Heaven is our home. This is not to say we don’t get planted and rooted where we are, but we do so with the awareness that this is not our forever home.

In Hebrews chapter 11, the writer is drawing our attention to those who trusted and lived by faith, waiting and believing in the promise to come. Even as they passed from this earth, they were still living by faith.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Hebrews 11:13-16

Are you longing for a better country? Are you reminiscing about a time gone by that felt warm and secure, but doesn’t exist anymore? Do you feel like a stranger here on earth? If yes, then you are in good company. Those who lived by faith and are acknowledged as those who put faith in action in the Scriptures, also felt those same feelings. This broken world, these dysfunctional systems we try so hard to control, are not our home. God is our home.

And our mandate from Christ is to bring as many other people home as we possibly can. Our purpose is not to live so secluded and insulated that our light grows dim. Our purpose isn’t to create better systems or even to make better leaders. As we live as strangers in this world, our responsibility is to bring people to Christ; to bring them home with God. Making disciples who make disciples. Because God’s home is not for a select few, but we know that he longs for all to come and dwell.

God is our home.

I am so grateful for that promise and assurance today. This Thanksgiving more than any other, this truth feels even more comforting to me.

Tim Keller likens our typical Christian approach to forgiveness as a type of “therapeutically- motivated culture” of forgiveness. We forgive in order to feel better – to attain inner peace – and so to also ensure forgiveness from God. Without embracing the reality of what forgiveness costs, we tend to take action for personal relief, healing, and mental rest. However, how often do we count the actual cost of forgiveness? Truly? We feel that cost deep, deep down, but we struggle to articulate the negative feelings because it doesn’t always sound Christlike and selfless. It can sound very self-preserving and, perhaps, angry.

Our Christian faith sets us apart from other religions in that we are called to forgive, and to extend love and grace, even in the face of hostility. However, we often fall short in our approach to true forgiveness. We tend to stay on the superficial level of releasing our wounds from others in order to feel better. But that is not the full picture of forgiveness. That is only a part of the process of forgiveness.

In his breakdown of the story of the wicked servant found in the book of Matthew, Tim Keller writes this in his book “Forgive”:

The request by the servant for “patience” – makrothumeo, a Greek word that literally means ‘to be slow to boil or melt’ – hints at the cost of forgiveness. The older English translation for makrothumeo was ‘long-suffering’. Patience is the ability to bear suffering rather than give in to it. To forgive someone’s debt to you is to absorb the debt yourself. If a friend borrows your car, totals it through reckless driving, and hasn’t any ability to remunerate you financially, you may say, “I forgive you,” but the price of the wrong does not evaporate into the air. You either find the money to buy a new car or you go without one. Either way, forgiveness means the cost of the wrong moves from the perpetrator to you, and you bear it.

Forgiveness, then, is a form of voluntary suffering. In forgiving, rather than retaliation, you make a choice to bear the cost.

True forgiveness is bearing the cost.

Jesus’ example to us of bearing the cost is the price he paid on the cross. Forgiveness is identifying with Christ’s sacrifice. We, thankfully, will never know the pain and suffering he experienced as he took on the sin of the world and paid the debt (our debt) of sin and evil. There is no earthly experience, not even the worst we can imagine, that can compare to the experience of Christ’s death on the cross. It was more than the physical act of suffering. It was the separation from God and the weight of sin. It is more than any of us could ever bear, and he voluntarily suffered on our behalf.

Christ is our example.

I find it fascinating that Christ, as he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest, requested that God would “take this cup” from him.

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:36

In his human form, he sought some relief from the price to pay. He cried out to God, “everything is possible for you (God, find another way to do this), please take it away.” But then he committed his will to God and stated, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

What this says to me is that when we feel that pang of hurt, grief, and hesitation to forgive the one who has wronged us, we are not feeling bad or non-Christian-like feelings. We are feeling very real and normal feelings. Who truly relishes in voluntary suffering?

And yet…in spite of the cost, Christ submitted himself to the will of God. Quite bluntly, if we want to follow after Christ- to identify with him in every way- then we, too, must surrender. We must choose to suffer and bear the cost.

This, I believe, is why forgiveness – true forgiveness – is so hard. I recognize this process is often missing in our Christian worldview. We seek, as even the world does, for inner healing and the personal satisfaction that comes from “letting go”, but there comes a point when this kind of forgiveness just isn’t enough or isn’t working for us anymore. We are seeing the ramifications of this approach in our world today. It is not enough to simply say “forgive and let go.” I believe this is due to the fact that that cost must be counted. We must allow ourselves permission to identify and accept what forgiveness is costing us.

But if we stop here we are still cutting the process of forgiveness short. There is more. We must look upward. We must look to Jesus.

It is when we do this that we also recognize forgiveness cannot take place without the supernatural grace extended to us through Jesus Christ. We cannot bear the cost without that. We are too human and too selfish. True forgiveness requires both the recognition of the cost and the dependence upon Christ’s supernatural empowerment to then bear the cost.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Romans 8:14-17

When we choose this voluntary suffering, we are sharing in Christ’s sufferings. Much of the work is internal as we choose to release our pain and our hurt into the hands of Jesus. And oftentimes this internal work is never known. Not very often do we see the kind of justice that we would prefer. We do this act of forgiving without fanfare and without a cheering squad. But we are not alone; Christ is with us, and he is holding us.

This is not to say that justice should be neglected. But the pursuit of justice without true forgiveness often becomes retaliation, and that should never be our motive.  We need clear discernment between the two.

To conclude my thoughts on the cost of forgiveness, I just want to add one thing. When we truly grasp the depth of Christ’s love for us when he chose to suffer on the cross for the redemption and forgiveness of mankind, it is difficult to stand in our justification of withholding forgiveness from others. I am not excusing the acts done against any person or persons, but I can only speak personally; when I encounter this transformative power of grace, love and forgiveness from God, there is nothing left in me but incredible awe and fear. Not terror or anxiety, but amazement at God’s goodness to me. And, from that goodness, I find my heart more inclined to forgive. It is a process, for sure, but a process that draws us closer to the heart of God, and deeper in identifying with his suffering. This is precious to me.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am deeply grateful for the price that Christ paid for the forgiveness of my sins. Where I fail, he brings redemption. Where I fall short, he fills in the gaps. And I am thankful for the example he set for me.

While the price of forgiveness almost seems too high at times, he showed us how to do it. And he promises his grace to see us through.

Jasper struggles with the concept of time. It is too abstract for him. This challenge is most noticeable when it comes to meals and snacks. He can sit down for breakfast, eat a bowl of oatmeal and fruit, walk away from the table, and five minutes later come to me ready for snack time. I have learned that setting a timer between activities in our morning, afternoon and evening routines helps – to some degree – with keeping him from eating us out of house and home. It also gives him small increments of time to process rather than big chunks of time.

If we didn’t have a schedule, and if there was no structure in our home, Jasper would easily eat his way through the day. He knows he gets to eat five times during the day, but what he cannot seem to put together in his mind is that there is a proper time for each of those meals. And we, his family, will take care to ensure that he is fed at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the snacks in between. Jasper resists this regularly, but the timer gives him the security that the next mealtime is coming. Jasper’s eye is on the timer and on me. He is waiting, and anticipating, because he knows that as soon as the ring of the timer goes off, I will give him his food.

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

Psalm 145:15,16

At the proper time.

A couple of things that I find comforting and encouraging in this verse is that there is a proper time for God’s provision, and he satisfies our desires.

Time is an abstract concept, and Jasper wrestles with comprehending the difference between five minutes and five hours. They are the same in his mind. He gets frustrated much the same way you and I get frustrated when it seems that God’s timing doesn’t make sense. His delays feel like no’s, five minutes feels like five hours, and we want to argue and negotiate our will into God’s heart. But he knows the proper time.

The eyes of all look to you…

What if we were to stop fighting for our time and our way and began to look to Jesus – to set our gaze upon him? Not just today, but tomorrow, and the day after that? What if we were to wait with our eyes on the one who is our Provider and rest knowing that the proper time is coming?

I think we might find more of that peace and rest we are so often longing for. I think that the deep internal work of keeping our eyes on Jesus would shift the trajectory of our desires and our expectation of the outcome.

…and you give them their food at the proper time.

Joel and I would never let Jasper starve. While we don’t give him food on demand, we do provide meals and snacks for him…at the proper time. If he leaves the dinner table hungry it is not because there has been a shortage of food. We supply everything he needs for each and every meal, and it is available to him at the proper time.

God will never forsake us or starve us. He may not give us what we ask for right away, but we can be confident that he will provide for us at the proper time. We can find peace, confidence and assurance in that promise. He knows our needs, and he knows our hearts. He cares for us like a parent cares for a child. He loves us.

You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

At the proper time God’s hand opens up and graciously satisfies the desires of every living thing.

But here is the thing about desire…

Our desires reveal the intentions of our hearts. Our hearts could be surrendered to God and our desires in alignment with his character, but they may also be clouded with self-seeking ambitions and pride.

Merriam Webster defines desire as: “to long or hope for: to express a wish for”.

We are not always the most impartial when it comes to discerning the true motivations of our hearts. We have to honestly ask ourselves, is what I am longing for, or wishing for, truly God’s best for me? Is this desire in alignment with God’s heart?

It is during that period of waiting on God, keeping our eyes on our Provider, that something incredible happens inside of us. Our hearts become more connected to God’s heart. Our dreams become more focused, and clear, and our desires begin to take on the form of God’s desires. We shed the self-seeking, self-gratifying parts of our wants and start coming into alignment with God’s wants and God’s desires.

I am grateful for the assurance that God is aware of me and that he is prepared to feed me and provide for me. I am thankful for a loving Father whose hand holds what I need, and that he promises to satisfy my desires. Even in the seasons of waiting, I can trust that God is working internally and externally on my behalf, and all that is required of me is to keep my eyes on Him.

That is something to be thankful for.

God is faithful and good…and he satisfies our desires…

At the proper time.

I’m grateful.

The beauty of painful seasons and hard things is the gratitude that blossoms in the middle of the chaos.

We don’t see it immediately, or even perhaps feel it, but if our hearts are open and tender and expecting, thankfulness will push its way to the surface at its proper time.

Winter soil is barren, hard, and cold. We don’t see all of the activity going on below the layer of frozen fields and dusty, dry ground. Just like a farmer looking out on a field of nothingness, it seems that, when we look inside, there is an internal void when we’ve hit a hard winter.

We typically use words like “dead” or “barren” when referring to winter.

But what if we were to reframe the way in which we see our winter seasons – how we would describe them?

Instead of looking at winter as a time of death and barrenness- which may be the case as often things do die and there are very few signs of life on the surface- perhaps we can try and view this wilderness time differently? Rather than lifeless, what if we shifted toward a perspective of rest?

Elijah, when he was running from Jezebel, was despondent. He was at his very lowest. Depressed, overwhelmed, weary and burned out, Elijah ran until his body quit on him. He had nothing left. All around him, it looked like a dark winter season. After seeing God do the miraculous, it is difficult to understand this angst. And yet, his despair was unquestionable.

What was God’s response? How did God engage Elijah at this very moment in his life?

Did he chastise him and tell him to get back up on his feet? Did he rebuke him for running away? Did God try to get him worked up into a frenzy with a big “you can do it” speech? Did God ignore or marginalize Elijah?

No.

Rather, like a tender parent to a hurting child, God nurtured and cared for Elijah.

He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank.

1 Kings 19:3-8

God fed him. He provided water to drink, and he gave him the gift of sweet sleep. He even sent an angel to care for him. Elijah ate, drank, and slept. The mercy that God extended to Elijah is the same mercy I believe he extends to us when we are in the darkness of a winter season.

Winter seasons are seasons of rest if we allow ourselves to receive it. If we can surrender to the rest, I believe we will find the peace, the resilience…and the gratitude…to move forward.

This is so contradictory to our way of living. We are pushers. We charge straight through in spite of our exhaustion. And when we hit that heaviness of depression or grief or disillusionment, we either hide it away so no one can see it, or we expose ourselves and risk marginalization. We don’t often show each other the kind of grace that God extended to Elijah. We care more about results than the person. Perhaps we fear our own winter seasons are coming, and it drives us to run away…to isolate…to push hard and farther.

But…

God is so gracious.

It is his grace and mercy through these harsh winters that brings me tremendous gratitude.

Simplistically explained, even in its most vulnerable stage of development, a tiny seed germinates into a sprout. The germination process is all done underground, hard at work to produce that initial sign of life.

Underneath the surface of our painful and hard seasons is a process of germination that will eventually produce a sprout. Winter is for rest. While we rest, God is feeding us and providing water for us to drink. We eat, drink, and sleep, and God does the work.

So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

1 Kings 19:8

God’s provision of rest and nourishment when we are in those broken and barren seasons gives us the strength to make the next journey and to take the next step forward. After Elijah had rested, and after he had sufficiently been fed and his thirst quenched, he was strong enough for a forty-day and forty-night journey to the mountain of God. I find this nothing short of a beautiful illustration of how sufficient God’s provision and his care is for us. Seasons of rest are not the end of the story. In fact, seasons of rest…those winters in our lives…are the precursor for hearing God’s voice…for approaching the mountain of God. We are not prepared for that next step until we have adequately rested in God’s grace and mercy.

I’m grateful.

Joel and I have been walking through a winter season. It has felt like a long one, too. Typically, we get to enjoy the beauty of fall as the seasons change, but ours has felt more like a swift jump from summer sunshine to the bitter cold of winter, with no pretty foliage to prepare us in between. And while we’ve asked God a number of times “why?”, we are slowly beginning to see that God is even here in the winter. That maybe he is calling us to rest. That perhaps this time is an opportunity to receive his grace and his mercy. I don’t love hard seasons. I’m not crazy. But the older I get, the more I am recognizing that it is through these hard seasons that we encounter God in a deeper and more meaningful way.

This season is producing the small and tender sprouts of thankfulness in our lives.  Thankful, not for pain and hurt and disappointment, but thankful for God’s presence and faithfulness through the pain and hurt and disappointment.

Winter is for rest.

And my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude…for God’s precious hand…for his mercy and grace.

The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

Psalm 145:13-15