I had devotions at staff meeting today. And it was good to spend time mulling some things with the Lord. Verses He's been impressing ON me and INTO me this season.
Spring is blooming all around. The trees, after a long, frigid winter, are heavy with blossoms and spring in Minnesota this year is truly glorious. Not always so, in northern country. Sometimes spring just leaps us to summer. The briefest season on the Minnesota calendar.
This spring, though, is long, drawn out, and the splendor of God's creation is singing his beauty. Usually the trees bloom around Big G's (my home-gone Grandma) birthday in May. This year, they are early and drenched with flowers. The grass is already green, all the spring bulbs are in full display.
Scripture speaks of God making everything beautiful in its time (ecc. 3:11).
Spring is surely beautiful after winter. And in the life of our church and many of the lives of dear friends around me we are speaking of a new hopefulness, the beginning of what feels like a new "season". A freshness and newness that is so life-giving. Sweet relief after seasons of hardship, struggles, enduring and for God shaking what could be shaken.
And yet...
it is in winter that all those tender buds begin. And without winter, they would not be.
Often we equate winter with hardness. Hard times, trying circumstances, dark misery or deep sorrow. Spring is the deliverance. The arrival. The ending and relief.
In Psalm 126 we read the following:
1 When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,
we were like men who dreamed.
2 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
3 The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
6 He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.
The last two verses describe the people returning from captivity and bondage. Their arms are laden with sheaves. The harvest of their sowing. They return and their joy isn't simply that captivity is over. It is more than that. The joy and fullness of heart is also from what God did for them IN the weeping. In the darkness.
We, like them, are transformed in our hard places. Romans 8:28 tells us that, "we know that in ALL THINGS God works for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose".
God, who is for me and with me, is for me and with me when life brings sorrow and suffering. When I long for my circumstances to change or healing to happen or the trial to end, God does even more than simply that. He actually brings buds to the plant IN the midst of my trials. In the midst of my captivity. And suddenly, I find that there is a release from bondage even during the deep waters and hard places.
What do I mean by that?
Luke still has epilepsy. He still has seizures. And yet. Although God hasn't fully healed that, and we struggle in this place, God is doing mighty things in Luke. He is developing his faith, and growing his trust and perseverance in the Lord, and I see these incredible buds forming of fruit to come. Luke's sheaves developing. His bedtime prayers are now reminders to himself of GOd's faithfulness, no matter what. He is scared to go to sleep that he might have a seizure. And so we comfort him with the comfort of Christ. And he comforts himself with God's promises. He bathes in Scripture and I have seen my little 9 year old experience God in his suffering. He is being upheld by His Lord. And THAT is transforming this hard place.
Luke is trusting God. Luke is freed from a piece of his bondage to fear.
There is freedom and deliverance in the midst of circumstances staying the same.
James 1:2 reminds us of one of the beautiful things adversity does. "Consider it pure joy, my friends, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in any good thing."
While I long and look for the day that Luke's epilepsy is healed, my Emma Kate is in our arms and able to live in our love, and a myriad of other things that I feel captive to are done, finished, over, I also rejoice that even now God is transforming me and us into completeness. In the midst of winter he shows up in our lives. He doesn't just wait for it to be over. He is IN IT with us.
I wrote a post awhile back about the release in this adoption of being a slave to my emotions of worry, fear and anxiety over the timing, etc. That was a huge sowing in tears for me. And God delivered my from that in the midst of still waiting and who knows what might really happen with paperwork and timing. But I am experiencing the joy of trusting Him and resting in His care and timing. That's freedom. THAT is God's freedom.
And beautiful, mighty and amazing things happen when I realize that my rejoicing becomes about rejoicing in who God is and what he has done and is doing. I sow in sorrow because that is what brings the sheaves I carry into freedom.
Sheaves representing God. His faithfulness. His freedom. His sovereignity. His trusworthiness. His ability.
Some people say God never gives you more than you can handle. I say hogwash. People would not do the things we do if we could "handle it". The truth is, life brings us to our knees often. Cuts to the quick. (John 16:33) And that is where we fall into the arms of the ONLY ONE who is able. GOD is able to get us through it. The One who has overcome the world helps us overcome.
Praise God for His ability. For in my weakness, He is strong and He makes a way in the barren, winters of my soul. In the barren winters of Luke's life. In the barren captivity of Israel all those years ago.
There is none like you, Jesus. And when our arms are filled with sheaves, our lips with shouts of joy and we are like men who dream as we return from captivity in far off places, then too I will declare your goodness, just as I do now.
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