The now season.

A friend sent me some verses the other day, we often have conversations that make my head feel like it may explode, she has an incredible mind and tends to underestimate the impact of her words on my scattered brain.

I don't take things in one by one, nor can I ever think in a straight line, so believe me when I say It was a challenge to write something based on the conversation we had. 

Here goes: 

 Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. (1 Corinthians 7:24 MSG)

And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches. (1 Corinthians 7:17 MSG)

What if we thought more about what we are called to do right now, then what we are called to do later? 

Maybe you feel called to preach one day, but right now you are called to Love. 

Maybe you feel like you'll travel the world one day, or write a book, or get married and have a family that serves God together. 

But right now your on the hosting team or working full time to save. 

Because where you are right now actually matters. 

The season your in has a purpose beyond what you can see. 

The preparing seasons are often the biggest growth seasons. 

If I am being real they are my least favorite seasons. 

I understand why I am here and what I am called to and don't get me wrong I am so content with where I am. 

I feel so incredibly blessed to be doing what I am doing and I am blessed with who I am doing it with. 

I just don't like feeling like I'm not "doing" anything. 

There are things I want for my life that are not for this season right now. 

Things that I am called to do, but not right now. 

Things that I know will happen, but they are not for now. 

I often find myself so focused on them that I forget the season I am in is also important. 

I am so busy preparing for then that I forget to be in the season I am in now. 

One thing I am being reminded of is that I am called for the now. 

One thing I am learning is how to do the season I am in well. 

Because how I do this season will shape who I am in the next season. 

The tourist in me.

If I said I was terrified to travel it may be a slight exaggeration, but at the time that's what it was like. 

The thought of being on a plane for a long time and not being able to get out scared me. 

The thought of lots of people scared me. 

Being so far away from home made nervous. 

Basically I'll go anywhere as long as I know I can leave whenever I want. 

In this case I knew I could not. 

But if I did not go it meant living small, in my small little world with just me and my  friends and everything familiar around me. 

I needed to be bigger. 

I have heard people say that when your afraid of something you should do it anyway. 

So I did it afraid. 

Considering that the few weeks before I left were among the worst I'd had anxiety wise, and considering I lost one my clients and my income was instantly halved I was honestly not sure how I would go. 

 

All I can say is I am so glad I did. 

Mostly so I can say I did it, the entire flight smoothly and calmly. 

The crowds, the lights and the many many people. 

My world is so much bigger then what it is. 

I take so much for granted and I don't want to live that way anymore. 

So this post is actually just to say that I am here, I am loving being a tourist and seeing everything. 

I'm grateful to catch up with forever friends and see how the church is advancing in this city. 

Not so scary after all. 

Some pics included to prove my point :) 

Night seasons.

I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. (Psalms 16:7 NKJV)

Sometimes it's so dark and that's just the truth of it. 

We can't always put things in a less confronting way. 

Our world is dark and broken. 

Sometimes we are too. 

We can't always see God in the season we are in and people cannot always see God in us. 

We often act like we don't know him at all. 

Sometimes stuff happens that leave us so gutted that all we see is the darkness. 

And sometimes we just can't see him in it just yet. 

What's in your heart at that moment? 

"My heart instructs me in the night seasons" 

When I cannot see anything but Darkness, what is my heart telling me to do? 

I never completely realized the importance of what I am putting in my heart. 

What I am reading, what I am looking at and what conversations I am having. 

Because in the night seasons that's what I am going back to. 

And it works. 

When I find myself wandering and I don't know how to get back I remember the conversations that effected my heart, I remember the revelations I've had and I remember the moments God spoke so clearly to my heart. 

Then I know where to go next. 

Warning: gross friendship appreciation post.

I have noticed that the people around me point me continually to Jesus. 

 

Those closest to me Love him amidst the trails they face. 

They seek him daily. 

Serve Him with faithfulness. 

They do what they love and they do it so well. 

They worship him with their entire heart. 

They teach their children how to love His house. 

They share revelations with me that blow my mind. 

They make me want to be so close to him. 

Even when I find myself looking towards anything else and thinking about everything else. 

When I cannot for even one second quiet the chaos that is my mind to hear his voice or feel his presence. 

When I cannot focus on his word.

When I screw up for the millionth time. 

When I find myself far away. 

They make me want to cling to him. 

I watch them Love him and have an intimacy with him that I struggle sometimes to have and it makes my heart ache for him and lean towards him even more. 

They are relentless and passionate and undeserving, but they don't stop loving him. 

They know Grace and they walk in it. 

So even when I feel like I am straying. 

When I feel not good enough, unsure of my faith. 

When I get annoyed at them for no viable reason or when I feel like I could maybe just do it on my own. 

I can see one thing and it points me to him all over again. 

I have one conversation and it's exactly what I needed to hear. 

And I just know I am blessed to be doing this with them. 

So if you happen to be one of them Thank you!! 

You make my life richer and my faith stronger. 

Surrender.

There is brokenness in all of us. 

Tiny fractures that beg to be mended, and we are forever searching for ways to mend them. 

To piece back together parts of us that are nothing more then the result of a fallen world. 

We strive to remain whole or to hide that we are not, from those who are also not. 

We strive to hold to our innocence until our knuckles are so white they begin to numb. 

We place it all upon ourselves until we buckle under the weight of it. 

When from the moment of our first breathe we were tainted. 

We could never have earned any if it. 

We never stood a chance from the beginning. 

We cannot piece ourselves back together with anything this world has to offer. 

We are born into brokenness. 

Our only hope for cleansing comes from throwing ourself in a million different pieces into the one who made every single piece of us with His very hands. 

Who with a single breathe created and with a single breath can create again. 

We must give ourselves to him. 

We must allow him to move over every bit of us. 

We must surrender. 

And we must do it over and over again. 

Straight paths.

Doors that I depended on being open are closing and doors that I expected to be opened have not yet. 

So while things I thought I was called to in this moment are no longer there and things I am sure I am called to do are not yet happening. 

I'm kind of stuck in the midst of a lot of closed doors with not a lot happening and not a lot i can do about it. 

Being in between a finised season and a season I am waiting for is not the ideal place I would like to be. 

I am usually I planner. I like to not only have a plan A and B but I would ideally like to have plans all the way to Z, just so I know I have things covered. 

In the space of about a month things changed before I had any time to properly prepare for them or understand what it would all look like.

Basically I lost a job today which means a decent pay cut and a lot more spare time. 

Funny thing is I am ok with it. 

It means changing how I do life in this season and learning to slow down a little. 

It means not being constanstly moving and busy. 

It means being still.

However the second I heard the news I started planning what I could do about it and planning how I could fix it or change it. 

My first instinct was to lean on my own understanding. 

And then suddenly I just felt like I shouldn't actually do anything about it. 

Which means more then ever learning to trust God when I have no idea what will happen next. 

It means learning to wait and not taking a step anyway just so I know I'm still moving. 

It means actually trusting him with all my heart. 

The thing is everything about life is fickle, nothing lasts, nothing ever stays the same. 

We are surrounded by so many variables with God remaining the only constant thing. 

Which brings me to this verse: 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV)

To me it's saying a few things

It's talking about trusting God with all your heart, not just a little part and then with the rest trusting in yourself or others or what you have in life. 

It's talking about not leaning on your own understanding not depending on what you know, cos God does not always reveal everything to us. 

But it's the last bit that gets me because it says submit your ways to The Lord and he will MAKE your paths straight. 

Not he will always keep your paths straight all the time. 

Or he will show you how to make them straight. 

But it's after you submit and surrender your ways to him that he makes then straight. 

It's after you trust him that he shows you why you need to. 

And it means that it's ok if your paths do not look straight right now. 

Worship without words.

If we worshiped without song lyrics, what would be your song? 

I asked myself this question during worship, because often I used to just wait in those parts of the worship where we are invited to sing our own song to The Lord for the lyrics to come back up on the screen. 

I guess I never really had one. 

I Love song lyrics. 

I find myself reading them over and over, thinking about what they mean. 

Wondering what the person who wrote them was thinking or feeling at the time. 

I think they are incredibly important in worship and often it's how God will speak to me during a service. 

But lately I have found myself being captivated by the part in the service where the band is just playing and the team is just singing out of their own heart to God, where they are glorifying him in there own words. 

I feel like more then ever in these moments the presence of God can settle on us. 

It's in these moments that He can whisper his words. 

And it's often in these moments that I could burst with how much I Love God. 

I find myself watching and listening in these moments. 

I find my spirit being strengthened by the words that the worship leader is saying and by the praises they are speaking to our God. 

Lately though God has been urging me to not sit back and just watch and listen but to actually be with him in these moments. 

I am by nature an observer, I often just sit and watch things happen around me, so I am so content to sit back and just be there in his presence and while there is power in that. I'm beginning to see that I'm missing so much more then I ever realized.

I'm missing a chance to have my own moment. To worship without words, without set lyrics and to have my own moment in his presence. 

So far all that has come out of my mouth is "thank you" over and over again. 

It's a start. 

Because if he never did one more single thing for me what he has done should be and is enough for me to be so thankful. 

Sometimes God can be so much more present in the quiet then in the noise and sometimes that's where he speaks the clearest.