Can you guess what kind of flower this is? 👇🏽
We’ll come back to that in a minute. :)
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Recently, I wrote a note to everyone on my email list with an invitation for any of those friends to reach out to me if they just wanted a friend to listen.
I am entirely grateful the conversations I was able to have following that note. There are a lot of thoughts and feelings to wrestle out with things going on in the world right now, aren’t there?
I can tell you – there are a lot of people right now who are feeling a bolstering in their faith, and at the same time, there are many who feel weary. I’d go so far as to say that we have friends among us who are carrying both of those feelings at the same time.
I think, if we’re all being honest here, we know very well that tension of living in the land of “faith & fatigue.”
Sometimes it feels like we’re holding on for dear life, putting all our bets on God to see a prayer through – and at the same time we’re secretly wondering,
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?” (see Psalm 13:1).
It’s that feeling of holding out hope on our faith, while at the same time feeling… forgotten.
Am I describing anything you’ve ever felt?
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I’ve come to see that it’s in that desert of “feeling fatigue and feeling forgotten” that believers are often tempted to throw in the towel. But here’s the thing- most often it’s such a subtle laying down of the “towel” that they themselves don’t even realize it’s happening.
Meaning, the “walking away” from their faith and the good fight isn’t some glaringly obvious, intentional turning point… it just sort of… “happens.”
A quiet quitting.
And that’s what I wanted to talk about today…
the fact that I can’t NOT make a call to my beloved friends and say, “DON’T GIVE UP!”
Yes, sometimes this life is an all-out dog-fight.
Yes, it can feel like we’ve just gone 15 rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson (in his prime).
Yes, there will be seasons where we feel like we’ve been left alone in the dark.
BUT THEN…
It’ll feel like the tiniest sliver of light breaks through.
We’ll reach toward that light, and in that moment we’ll realize that that whole time – when we felt like we were buried in the dirt and darkness and left for dead – that whole time, God was doing the work only He could do in us, and the time of waiting – the time of our calling out from the depths – it was not lost.
We were not forgotten.
We were just being held in the place where He wanted us for that season, so He could do the work He knew needed to be done.
In our wrestling, we got stronger.
In the darkness, we had to decide if we were going to intentionally seek the light.
In the dirt, we had to decide if we were going to count that as an offense by God toward us – or if we were going to surrender to the vital nutrients that could only be found in that hard ground…
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How easy it can be for us to insist that God’s timeline must match our own…
Especially in the world we live in, where we are told we have the right to have everything we want and to have it now, we have to remember that for everything there is a season.
My heart for you, dear friend – especially if you’re in a season that’s left you feeling weary in the waiting while you’ve been giving everything you can to do good – is that you would hold fast to the truth that this season won’t last forever.
And don’t you dare give up.
God is doing a good work in you – even in the waiting.
He is giving you what you need to blossom in the next season, but even beyond that – to bear the fruit He has called you to bear.
Trust in His timing.
The story being weaved in your life right now is not just for you – it’s for all of us who need your testimony of hope and God’s faithfulness.
You will reap the harvest…
in due season… if you do not give up.
Believing in the good that’s yet to come,
Amanda
a little more…
I recently walked in to our local grocery store and this
massive display of pumpkins greeted me.
I stood there for a second and had a few thoughts.
- “Harvest. I wonder how long ago the farmer planted the pumpkin seeds…?”
- “I wonder what would have happened if the farmer gave up on the seeds when they were showing no visible signs of growth?”
- “I wonder why I don’t go to the store in March expecting to find massive displays of recently harvested pumpkins…?”
I don’t expect pumpkins to be everywhere in March because it’s not the right season for them.
The pumpkin seeds are buried in the dirt sometime in late spring/early summer.
They’re tucked away in the dark…
Then they sprout… and poke their way from the ground and make their way into a vine that continues to grow.
Beautiful flowers bloom along the vine (which, YES, is the flower at the beginning of this note. :)
From those flowers sprout the budding pumpkin… when the time is right.
And then
Harvest.
In due season.
—-
God is still holding you.
He is still growing you.
He is still going good things in you and through you.
His timing is perfect.
The best is yet to come.
Just don’t you dare give up…
