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seasons

Savoring Your Season: Be Not Afraid

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Life is full of seasons other than spring, summer, fall and winter. Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; single, dating, engaged and married. We have healthy and unhealthy seasons, ones of flourishing and of pruning, and every high and low in between. I’ve been one to say I’m in a season of waiting just as often as I say I’m in a season of going. Too often, we lose sight of the present season for looking too much on the seasons past or future. Let’s take some time this week to be honest about our seasons – mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally – and learn to savor and soak in where we are now.

 

Be Not Afraid

You whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:9-10

tuesdayWhen I tell people that I’m moving to Thailand, one of the first questions they ask is, “Are you scared?” The truth is, I’ve asked the same question of myself almost as often as others have. My life and my relationships used to be ruled by fear – the fear of rejection, the fear of getting hurt, the fear of failure. In the past few years, I’ve decided there’s another choice I can make.

The world teaches us to fear. Fear people, especially the ones who are different from you. Fear the ocean for the sharks. Fear the government, public education, money, the world – you can fill in the blank with any number of things when you turn the news on in the evening.

Too often we live out of our worst fears instead of our best hopes. We let fear become our motivator and our address, yet we are not called to be a people of fear. We are a people of faith, hope, and love. We are a people of Scripture that tells us “Do not fear” 365 times, Scripture that tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:17 “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” This includes freedom from our fears, our worries, and ourselves. When we reject fear and choose to stand firm in the freedom of Christ’s perfect love, our lives become more open, more generous, more loving and more patient.

Fear can rob us of passions and dreams given to us by God if we choose not to fight them. Every person I know that has struggled with specific fears has a calling on their lives that fear keeps them from fulfilling. Isn’t that all of us? My fear of rejection and being alone has had the potential to steal away the opportunities and distract me from the path that the Lord has laid out before me. When we listen to our fears over listening to our God, we risk missing something beautiful.

On earth, in our imperfect states, we will never completely remove fear from our lives, but we can choose to change our focus. We can choose to stop living from a place of fear and instead live out of a place of security in the power of Christ, whose perfect love casts out all fear. It won’t always be easy and it certainly won’t always be safe, but our lives are secured in the love of a Father who created the universe with a simple word.

Amy Carmichael was a missionary to India who once said, “If my attitude be one of fear, not faith, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” Be brave with your life and your faith – the God who created you and knows every hair on your head will never leave you. Your identity and your eternity are already secured in the God who conquered evil for you. What can man do to change that?

Chelsey

Savoring Your Season: To Ordinary & Beyond

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Life is full of seasons other than spring, summer, fall and winter. Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; single, dating, engaged and married. We have healthy and unhealthy seasons, ones of flourishing and of pruning, and every high and low in between. I’ve been one to say I’m in a season of waiting just as often as I say I’m in a season of going. Too often, we lose sight of the present season for looking too much on the seasons past or future. Let’s take some time this week to be honest about our seasons – mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally – and learn to savor and soak in where we are now.

 

To Ordinary & Beyond

For I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

Philippians 4:11-12

mondayI spent the year after my college graduation traveling the world in the name of Jesus. It was an incredible season of life: ever-changing, ever-adventurous, ever-growing. And then one day, it was over. In the snap of my fingers I went from a time where I could stand in two countries at once to living in my parents’ house again, and I didn’t know what to do with it. In my journals, I referred to my consistently bored and nostalgic demeanor as my “Post-Incredible-Season-Disorder.”

At times in our lives we get to walk with God in something new – new places, new relationships, new ministry or new job opportunities – and every day seems like another new adventure. Those are truly incredible seasons, seasons that we should embrace and celebrate. But we also have to acknowledge and accept that, like all seasons, it ends and leads to another.

I had been so immersed in “extraordinary” (though, most of those extraordinary days were steeped in ordinary things) that “ordinary” was boring. A “normal” schedule in a “normal” home made me roll my eyes. I fell into a lie that this new ordinary life of waking up, going to work and coming home for dinner wasn’t enough.

The truth is, our faith is born in the ordinary. I mean, literally, Jesus was born to an ordinary girl in an ordinary town in an ordinary stable. Our faith grows in “ordinary” Bible reading and in ordinary fellowship with ordinary believers.

Living an extraordinary life isn’t rooted in the places we go, the people we know, or how adrenaline-inducing our daily lives may be. Living an extraordinary life is rooted in the extraordinary One who is leading the way.

Life with Jesus makes an ordinary 9-5 work day extraordinary. It gives every carpool line significance and adds meaning in the most mundane tasks of doing the dishes, cleaning out the car, or making the bed.

A little perspective can go a long way, and when we choose to see our season of life with our eyes on the One who walks with us, He makes all things extraordinary.

Chelsey