 This article was first published in the TREASURE issue of The Joyful Life Magazine I take my time making the bed, fluffing the pillows and inhaling the quiet. Before I know it, this will be what every day is like, I think to myself. When the kids are all grown, this will be normal. My husband and soon-to-be 4-year-old son were away for a few days, and I was at home with our older girls. Without Lucas tearing around, the house felt quiet—no toys strewn about, no early-morning wake-ups or little body in the bed at night. The freedom to get up when I was ready, go about my day at my own pace and actually complete tasks, had me projecting ahead to when this would be my reality, and yet I had no desire to rush forward in time to that moment. I wanted to enjoy this season—even if all the demands on my time were stretching me and sleep deprivation wearing me thin. If you met me some twelve years ago, though, it would have been a different story. After five years of marriage, my husband and I found ourselves broke and living back at home with my parents, a new baby in tow. Nothing about my life was going as I had anticipated. Disappointed and disillusioned, I longed for life to look different. Desperate to be done with this chapter of my story, I wanted to turn the page and start a new one as fast as I possibly could. Tomorrow could not come soon enough. Then, one day, I was asked a question that ignited a new way of thinking and operating. THE QUESTION I was sitting across from my work supervisor, unloading my frustrations about my current season, when she interrupted me with a question: “Where is God for you right now?” That’s easy, I thought. I know the answer to this one. So I confidently replied, "He’s in His promises." Certain that my answer was not only the right one, but also a very good one, I was somewhat dumbfounded when she shook her head and told me it was not, in fact, a good answer--that I had a problem. Instead of being able to enjoy God’s presence with me and appreciate His current activity in my life, I saw Him as waiting for me in my future. So she sent me home with an assignment: to watch the Adam Sandler movie “Click.” If you haven’t seen the movie, Sandler plays an overworked architect trying to juggle his family and burgeoning career, who stumbles upon a universal remote that enables him to pause, skip, and fast-forward through life. Without divulging too much of the storyline, he gets to a point where he regretfully realizes he has used this power to 'click' his life away. What my supervisor wanted me to understand that day, was that while God’s promises were a good thing to hold on to, I also needed to be awake to the things God had for me right now—He wanted to be alongside me no matter how painful, messy, or ordinary that 'now' might be. But I was in danger of 'clicking' my life away. CLICKING OUR LIVES AWAY We do it all the time, don’t we? We wish our lives away with phrases like ‘if only’ and ‘one day when...’ Back then, I wanted to be able to fast-forward or even skip whole scenes of my life altogether because of how painful and disappointing they were--these days, I can be tempted to grab the remote and change the channel to escape how mundane life can feel. I want to escape the monotony of laundry and dishes, lesson-planning and carpooling and... So I zone out and scroll social media, idealizing the lives of people I don’t even know. But God used Adam Sandler to teach me a valuable lesson all those years ago: Now matters. Now matters not only because how we steward it shapes tomorrow, but because no matter what ‘now’ looks like, it is filled with divine purpose. Now is a powerful opportunity to experience God and serve Jesus right where we are--right as we are. We don’t have to wait for tomorrow to find meaning and purpose. We can discover it today. CHANGING OUR FOCUS “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:22-24, NIV). These verses are set in a section of Colossians titled, ‘Instructions for Christian Households.’ Earlier, Paul had been talking generally about what it looks like to belong to the family of God, reminding us to put on love so that we can walk in unity (v. 14). Now, he gets more specific about how that should look in particular relationships, addressing husbands and wives, children and fathers, slaves and masters--and it is the slaves (who had the lowest rank and the least freedom of all), whom he charges to work wholeheartedly for their masters as though working for the Lord. Paul is deliberate in referring to Christ as ‘kyrios,’ the Lord, in these verses. A ‘lord’ was he to whom a person or things belong, about which he has the power of deciding; one supreme in authority. He was reminding slaves who had to answer to a ‘master’ that they still had the freedom to choose who their true master was—he knew that this truth had the power to transform how they did their work. While we will likely never experience slavery in the form Paul was addressing, we can often feel like slaves to our circumstances. And the same truth applies to us: We may not be free to choose our circumstances but we are free to choose whom we will serve in them. We can choose a different ‘master’ because we have been set free to choose Jesus--to serve and honor Him in all of our ‘whatevers.’ Turning our focus back onto Christ transforms even the most menial role into a privilege. If we will allow Him to be Lord, instead of our circumstances, then right now—whatever season we find ourselves in, whatever tasks are before us—can become an opportunity to serve God. Even if the task seems lowly, even if the season is a humbling one, there is still God-given purpose and blessing in it. IN WORD AND DEED “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17, NIV). This verse, along with the subsequent ones addressing slaves, are underscored, encircled, and marked up in my Bible. Words like ‘whatever,’ ‘do it all,’ ‘giving thanks,’ and ‘all your heart’ challenge my thinking. I’m happy to do the fun things of life with gusto and enthusiasm—but suffering? Or servanthood—with all its menial, unseen, and unapplauded tasks? While I might be going through the right motions, my words usually betray the true posture of my heart. They reveal whether I am working as ‘unto the Lord’ or whether I resent my current season. When my words are tinged with complaint or bitterness, it’s usually a sign that not only have I lost sight of the privilege of serving Christ, I’ve also stopped relying on Him. I’ve ceased to abide and begun to strive. Paul uses this convicting phrase, ‘whatever you do,’ in both Colossians 3:17 and 23. The word that he used for ‘do’ is the Greek word poieō, and is the same word that Jesus used in John 15:5 where He tells us that “Apart from Him, we can do [poieō] nothing.” It describes a productive action and has the primary meaning of producing or making. Throughout Scripture, it is used to describe the activity of God. In contrast to the other word used for ‘do,’ ergazomai, which is often translated as ‘work,’ it is not about laboring and striving, but creating. God’s heart is that ‘whatever’ His children put their hands to, it would be productive and fruitful. So He invites us to do ‘whatever’ for Him, and also to do it with Him—to do it in His name. Throughout the New Testament, we see that those who performed miracles, those who declared the gospel and baptized new believers, did so in the ‘name of Jesus.’ The power and authority they drew on to do these things was not their own—it was Christ’s. And this is how Paul urges us to live also: to draw not on our own strength and resources, but Christ’s. “As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives” (Colossians 1:10-11, The Message Paraphrase). I had frequently tried to pick up the remote and change the channel on my season of life because I felt so inadequate and dissatisfied. I had been trying to make my own way through. Worn-down and depleted by our family’s circumstances, the thought of ‘one day’ offered a form of escapism. But God wanted me to learn that if I would stop trying to ‘click’ my life away and instead keep my eyes firmly fixed on Him, He would teach me how to live out of His glory-strength. As I learned to be present to where He had positioned me, I discovered that the gift He continually gives me, both in times of lack and times of abundance, is the gift of His presence. I can be wholeheartedly and thankfully present to my ‘now,’ because He is with me. REAPING AN INHERITANCE Slaves had few to no rights in ancient Rome, and their lack of legal status meant that they could neither own property nor were they entitled to inherit—yet Paul promised them the reward of an inheritance. This reward was both ‘now’ and ‘still yet to come’ in nature. While they looked forward to the day when Christ appeared and they would also appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:4), they had already been given the gift of the Holy Spirit within them. He was the guarantee of the inheritance they would one day possess in full (Ephesians 1:14), enabling them to live for Christ’s glory right now. And He is our guarantee also. We serve a God who brings honor to the dishonored places of our lives; He is able to give us an inheritance even if the circumstances of our lives seem to oppose one. He redeems our suffering. He values our sacrifices and esteems our servanthood. He sees the unseen. But when I continually long to fast-forward or skip scenes of my life altogether, I risk robbing myself of the treasures--the inheritance--God has for me. All those years ago, God encouraged me with a promise from Isaiah: “I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name” (Isaiah 45:3). It was a promise of purpose in and from my suffering--a reminder that He desires to fill my life with His riches. But it wasn’t a promise for the distant future. It was a promise for me to unearth right then—He wanted me to find Him in the dark, secret places that were unseen by many, but so very seen by Him. He wanted me to know that I was not forgotten, but called by name. And I did. So much so, that the very struggles I once tried so hard to escape, I now see as a rich treasure trove of His generous, redemptive activity in my life. Moving in with my parents was far from the end of our struggles--much of the next decade would be marked by hardship and trials, the consequences of which still linger in part today. While there are still days in my humanity where I plead for God to please bring change, I more readily pause to ask what He is doing now and how I can partner with Him in it. I am learning to not ‘click’ my life away, but to honor the places He has positioned me in by being wholeheartedly present to them and to Him, my Lord. Only then can I begin to unearth the treasures He has for me to discover.
1 Comment
 This article was first published in the AWAKEN issue of The Joyful Life Magazine
|
| IDEAS FOR PREPARING YOUR OWN SPIRITUAL MEAL I encourage you to take time to research and try out different study methods. Find a system that works well for you. If you struggle to stay focused when reading your Bible, try reading aloud. Scripture tells us to write His Word on the tablet of our hearts—it also tells us that our tongues are like pens (Proverbs 3:3, Psalm 45:1). When you read aloud, it not only helps you stay engaged with the text, it is also a powerful way to imprint His truth on your heart. Read through Psalms, and as you do, compile a list of all the names and attributes of God they record. By the end, your perspective of who God is will be greatly enlarged. In busy seasons, read a chapter of Proverbs respective to the date, asking God which piece of wisdom you particularly need to heed today. Do a ‘read the Bible in a year’ (or two years) plan to help you understand the overarching story of Scripture. Ask questions: Who is writing? Who are they writing to? Who is in this passage? Where does it take place? What is happening? Why is it happening? How would I feel if I were there? Put yourself into the narrative. Imagine you’re one of the characters. Engage your senses and allow the text to come alive. Choose a book of the Bible (the shorter epistles are great for this) and meditate on a verse a day. Write it down at the top of the page, paying attention to the individual words and recording everything God shows you about that verse. Follow a specific word or theme throughout the Bible. One year I traced the word ‘fear’ throughout the New Testament, and this experience changed my understanding of that word and brought a greater freedom from anxiety. Have a go at ‘Lectio Divina’: a contemplative practice for meditating on passages of Scripture. |   |
2020. “The year the world stopped” is perhaps how it will be described in the history books. Part of me has relished the slowing down—evenings usually spent ferrying my daughters to all their dance classes, working from my ‘office’ in the car, have been replaced with unrushed family dinners, happy hours and movie nights. Slow Sundays have enabled us to pay greater attention to the spiritual health of our family—and to drag all the kids down to the beach for a walk whether they want to come with us or not (anyone else have teenagers who prefer the four walls of their room?). But while isolation has ushered in gifts of togetherness, it’s also exposed all the things that I was too busy to pay attention to—the things I kept telling myself I’d deal with tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow has come, forcing me to face the places that have not been healthy in our life as a family—that have not been healthy in my own heart. And with this exposing, has come a fresh realisation of just how much I need to hear the voice of God. How desperately I need His wisdom and perspective on the things I find myself navigating; His vision for my family, my marriage, my work and my ministry; His truth to help me stand firm in a world that is being shaken. Because otherwise, the voice I find dominating my heart is the voice of fear. And fear never leads us well.
As I’ve sought to quieten the voice of fear and lean into what God is saying, I’ve found myself repeatedly drawn to an episode in Elijah’s life, recorded in 1 Kings 17-19. Israel had been in drought for three years—not a single drop of rain had touched her land in all that time. Famine had ensued, and I don’t doubt that fear’s voice could be heard loud and clear. Yet Elijah heard something different—he heard the voice of God. Throughout those three years, we are repeatedly told that “the word of the Lord came to Elijah,” and each time it came to him, it either directed Elijah to a place where he could personally receive the provision that he needed, or where he could release the provision that others needed.
I long to be like Elijah, listening above all to the voice of the Father. I want to draw on His provision and carry the truth of who He is with me in this season, and in doing so, shine a light for those who feel overcome by darkness. But how do we do this? How do we quiet our fears long enough to hear the Father's voice? Elijah's story offers us some keys that can help us be intentional about the sounds that fill our hearts and minds and strengthen our ability to hear "the word of the Lord" for ourselves.
THE POWER OF GOD
It was the late 2000’s and I found myself with three preschoolers, an unemployed husband and a mountain of debt. We struggled constantly just to keep our heads above water. Yet in those lean years, we also stood witness to Jeremiah’s words, “Sovereign Lord, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for You” (Jeremiah 32:17, NIV). People loved on us in ways that went far beyond just making sure our basic needs were met, grocery vouchers showed up in our letterbox every month for a year and debts were miraculously forgiven—by the tax department even! Friends helped keep a roof over our heads, and whenever we would think we couldn’t possibly make it through one more day, by His grace we would. God demonstrated to us time and time again that He is outside of our economy and unconstrained by the things that constrain us.
Elijah’s story reminds me of this same truth: God ordered the ravens to feed him (1 Kings 17:4), commanded a penniless widow to feed him, extending to her a miraculous supply of resources to carry out this task (1 Kings 17:9), and sent angels to serve him bread and water (1 Kings 19:5-7). In the midst of drought and famine, God made provision for Elijah and those connected to him. Elijah is not alone in experiencing God’s supernatural provision—from the manna that fell from heaven (Exodus 16), to the widow’s oil (2 Kings 4:1-7), to the multiplication of two fish and five loaves to feed thousands, Scripture continually reminds us of God’s ability to provide for His children.
As we face these uncertain times, we must recount the testimonies of God’s faithfulness—both our own and those recorded for us in the pages of Scripture—allowing them to fuel a continued expectation for more of the same. God is not hemmed in by COVID-19; it has not stripped Him of His power. He is still able to speak to us; still able to tend to the needs of His people; still able to heal and restore. He has done it before, and He will do it again.
Reflect: Recall God’s faithfulness. What testimonies of your own, and of the saints, encourage you in this season? Carry them with you and draw on them for strength.
THE POWER OF PRAYER
I wish I could tell you that recalling the many and miraculous ways God has provided for and worked within our family over the years is enough to quiet the fears of today. But I’ve learned that while the past does provide fuel for the present, I must also be proactively leaning into what God is saying and doing now; learning to look beyond what the naked eye can see to perceive the Father’s activity and purpose so I can partner with Him in it.
After demonstrating God’s power to the people and exposing the futility of their worship of Baal, Elijah turned to King Ahab and declared, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain” (1 Kings 18:41). There was not a cloud in the sky at the time Elijah spoke these words. He heard the answer—the promise of God in relation to their need--before it was a visible reality. But it’s what he did next that caused the sound of rain to become the release of rain. Elijah climbed to the top of Mt. Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees (18:42)—he chose to align himself with what God was saying and to then persevere in prayer.
In Hebrew, Carmel means a garden land, a place of fruitfulness and fertility. In a time of need and lack, Elijah chose to retreat to a place of fruitfulness, and he did not move from that place until he saw the clouds of rain beginning to rise from the sea; until what he had ‘heard’ was made manifest. Prayer—our intimate communion with the Father—is our place of fruitfulness. Just like Elijah, we must learn to climb—climb above the shouts of fear, above the obstacles and lack that surround us, to see as the Father does. We must cultivate time in His presence, time spent in a posture of worshipful surrender, allowing the hope of Christ to inspire perseverance within us while we wait for what God has spoken to also become our experience (1 Thessalonians 1:3).
Reflect: What is the Father saying to you in this season? What does it look like practically for you to align yourself with His purposes?
THE POWER OF REST
In my own life, I’ve found that fear screams loudest when I’m weary. Uncertainty is tiring, suffering is exhausting, and even though the hope of Christ shines bright, standing firm and contending in the spirit, takes its toll. Just ask Elijah.
On the heels of his success, Jezebel made a threat against his life. And though you’d think that after demonstrating God’s power, putting the prophets of Baal to shame, and calling forth rain to end Israel’s drought that Elijah would have been steadfast, instead we read that he was afraid and ran for his life, telling God he’d had enough and praying that he might die (1 Kings 19:3).
It encourages me no end that even the heroes of our faith got tired and worn down, but it’s God’s response to Elijah that encourages me even more. God did not berate Elijah or give him a pep talk, but instead sent an angel to minister to him. He tended to his physical needs, providing food and water and time to sleep so that he could gain the strength he needed to continue his journey.
We are both spiritual and physical beings, and strength flows when we tend to both these aspects. Our spirits are strengthened as we commune with God, listening to His voice and recalling His past faithfulness, and our bodies are strengthened when we care for them well. In the midst of all the demands and pressures we face, we need to be aware of the cues and warning signals our bodies send us and honour them. We need to view nourishing our bodies as holy work. Rest, fuel your body with good food, run a relaxing bath, exercise, get outside and breathe in the fresh air, and allow God to minister to the fullness of who you are.
Reflect: What does it look like for you to enjoy rest and tend to your physical well-being today?
* * *
As the people of God, we are not immune from the challenges of this season—but how we walk through those challenges should look different. We have not been given a spirit of fear, but the Spirit of God Himself, who enables us to walk with love, power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV). He delights to give us the wisdom and counsel that we need; to direct us to the provision that is needed at this time.
Elijah’s willingness to hear and respond to the voice of God, caused the people of Israel to fall prostrate and cry out, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!” (1 Kings 18:39). If we, too, will turn from the lies of fear and allow our hearts to hear the voice of the Father, we will be equipped to navigate life in such a way that not only are we reminded of who God is, but the world is too.
What will you hear?
This piece was first published in the SURRENDER issue of The Joyful Life Magazine.
My childhood summers were synonymous with lazy days by the beach, getting lost in the pages of a good book and jigsaw puzzles. Not just any jigsaw puzzles, mind you, but giant jigsaw puzzles with hundreds of pieces that required hours, if not days, to sort and deliberate over which section of the puzzle they belonged to. I constantly referred back to the image on the box for clues. Once complete, I was reluctant to ever return the pieces back to the box, wanting to somehow enshrine the puzzle and my achievement.
The feelings of frustration when I couldn’t get a piece to fit where I was convinced it belonged, remain vividly etched in my mind. I would turn them and then turn them again, trying over and over to make them fit, until eventually, I would walk away or work on a different section before attempting to place the piece again. Positioning just one piece wrongly could skew the whole picture, affecting all the surrounding pieces.
I’ve spent much of the past few years trying to figure out where various pieces of my own life ‘puzzle’ belong, wrestling with the tension of old and new, of past and present. With how to "forget the former things and not dwell on the past" (Isaiah 43:18), no matter how precious or painful that past might be, in order to have the capacity to fully and freely hold the new things God has for me. At times, I’ve found myself getting stuck holding on to pieces I’ve desperately wanted to make fit in my current season, even if they weren’t meant to—pieces God asked me to surrender and trust Him to rightly position.
A NEW BEGINNING
“You’ve been holding your father’s dream in your hands for a really long time and perhaps it’s time for you to hold some dreams of your own.”
The words of my mentor arrested me, inviting me, forcing me even, to evaluate the life I was living.
In my late teens, my now-husband and I helped my parents plant a church. It was a labor of love that we poured our hearts into for nearly eighteen years, nine of which I served on staff, eventually becoming a credentialed minister and associate pastor to my father, a role that truly felt like a desire fulfilled. Those years abounded with rich vibrant community and deep disappointments simultaneously.
Ten years into the church plant, this small faithful congregation had sacrificially sown of their time and finances to enable us to lease and renovate a building we could call home. Our days of setting up and packing down every week appeared to be over and we were going to put down roots in our community. At first, the church flourished and grew. All felt right and promising. But then, abruptly, we started hitting roadblock after roadblock, and entered a season marked by financial challenges, sickness, loss, and death. These challenges culminated in us deciding to return to renting a community facility to help relieve the financial pressures. We made the painful decision to assign our building lease to another local church and move on. But the reality was I could not simply leave my grief behind. Many of the losses in this period had touched me personally—I was amongst the women in our congregation who lost babies that year; it was my father who had suffered a series of strokes, and my dear friend that we had buried too soon.
In the latter years of this journey, lingering health issues made it necessary for my parents to step aside from being the Lead Pastors. They relocated an hour’s drive away to live by the beach and recover. Their absence, as well as the birth of our youngest child, caused me to question the various hats I had been wearing. I couldn’t shake the feeling God was calling me to something new, that He was asking me to let go of how I thought my life and ministry should look in order to allow Him to reshape and redefine my dreams.
At the suggestion of our leadership, I took a few weeks leave to pray and determine what I felt God was saying. I returned from my leave and offered my resignation, fully intending to remain a committed member of our church community. Yet only ten months later, it became apparent that to remain was not what God had planned for us. After a period of prayer and fasting and seeking counsel from trusted advisors, my husband and I sensed that God was inviting us to a new beginning and asking us to release the Church we had poured our lives into to a new beginning of their own.
It was hard to believe that after eighteen years of community, we were starting over. The picture that God was forming looked nothing like the ‘box’ I had been referring to, and I no longer knew where all the pieces belonged.
STRAINING TOWARD WHAT IS AHEAD
The old and the new are often indelibly entwined. I couldn’t amputate my past—it had formed me. But I also couldn’t keep grasping at what had been or even what I had hoped would be for the future. I needed to loosen my grip and shift my focus. In the words of the apostle Paul, it was time for me to "forget what was behind and strain towards what is ahead" (Philippians 3:13).
The motif in this and the surrounding verses is of an athlete running a race and all the time keeping the finish line firmly in sight. Paul knew well that we cannot take hold of all that Christ has for us if we are continually looking in the rearview mirror. Like the athlete he envisioned, we have to choose to press forward—to stop tilling the ground of our past and put our energy and focus into straining towards what is ahead. In the Greek, the word ‘strain’ is an athletic word depicting a runner using every muscle to stretch forwards. And that’s the truth. Sometimes it is a strain and a stretch to look toward the future and believe that something new is possible. It can take every fiber of our being to change our narrative and accept God’s perspective—to believe His truth, His promises, and His Word over and above our circumstances or past experiences.
As I began to press on and look ahead, I found the past to be a hurdle not only because of its disappointments, but also because of its highlights. As my disappointment whispered that it would never get better, my treasured memories spoke the same lie—that my future could never be better than my past, could never live up to what I had previously known.
I couldn’t bypass these hurdles. In order to keep running my race, I needed to clear them. I needed to allow God to show me how He saw these pieces that I could no longer place.
REVISITING THE PAST
In His infinite grace and wisdom, God took me back to a place of past disappointment to remind me that He wasn’t finished with my story yet; that if I could trust Him, there was still more to come.
As we hesitantly stepped away from the old and began to look towards the future, we decided to join the congregation led by my spiritual director and her husband. Her gentle and insightful wisdom had been invaluable in helping me work through all of the change and loss we had experienced, and they and their congregation felt like a safe place to sit while we continued to process our journey and build new community. The great irony of this decision was that they were the same church who had taken over our former church’s lease and premises. I found myself worshiping again in the same building that once embodied my dreams, yet now symbolized loss and failure.
At times, it felt overwhelming to be in this familiar place. I kept expecting to see my father pop out of his old office or to be greeted by someone I knew at the door. I knew every inch of the building—its history, its quirks and smells, the stories the walls could tell—and yet everything about it had changed. The old and new collided in my mind and grief would well up within me as I remembered the faces of people I had once stood shoulder to shoulder with in this very space. I felt the sting of disappointment afresh. Why had our old church not been able to enjoy the fruit of our sacrifices? Why had our story not had the ending we had believed and prayed for, and labored toward? Why did we have to start over? Why could I not have continued doing life and ministry with the people I had come to love so completely? If I was to be in this space again, why couldn’t it be with them?
Ever so gently and slowly, God gave me a different perspective, His perspective.
I had been viewing my life with a somewhat finite lens, so focused on the current part of the puzzle that was forming that I had lost sight of the big picture, the eternal picture.
In the scheme of eternity, our labors had not been futile. God did not see wasted efforts, He saw faithfulness. We had partnered with him to establish something in our community that was still extending His love and truth, even if we no longer inhabited it.
Where I saw a scattered people, He saw a people sent out. He planted these mature seeds of disciples in new ground to keep building and strengthening His wider church.
Where I saw barrenness, He saw pruning—areas of my life and heart that He was preparing and cultivating for greater fruitfulness.
This new perspective didn’t completely undo my disappointment, but it did help me to stop dwelling on it. I realized God wasn’t asking me to forget the past as much as He was asking me to reposition it. To frame it with His Kingdom purposes and then allow it to fade into the background so He could bring a new section of my ‘puzzle’ to the forefront. Ironically, the only way I could regain my focus on His faithfulness was by looking at my past. The very things I needed to no longer dwell on also held the key to my being able to press on.
In the same way, when Isaiah called the Israelites to forget the former and see the new thing God was doing, he first recounted the ways in which God had previously worked on their behalf, reminding them that He had made a way for them out of slavery and through the Red Sea, into a new beginning. If He had done it then, He could do it now. He encouraged the Israelites to allow God’s prior acts of faithful provision to fuel in them an expectation for something new again—no matter how impossible that might have seemed.
THERE IS ALWAYS MORE AHEAD
I have often contemplated the stark contrasts found in the life of Paul. He was a man who miraculously and dramatically encountered God. He planted churches and wrote much of what we now call the New Testament, witnessing healings and countless conversions. And yet, he was also a man who prior to his conversion, persecuted believers and had to live with their blood on his hands. He was shipwrecked, rejected, imprisoned, and beaten. This man, who had much to celebrate and much to wrestle with, tells us not only that he presses on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of him, but that he does not consider himself yet to have taken hold of it (Philippians 3:12-13). Paul understood that no matter how much of God’s grace and favor he had already experienced, there was still more for him to lay hold of and live out. His past had convinced him of it.
So he pressed on. Not out of obligation, nor of drudgery, but fuelled by his passion for Jesus.
“I run with passion into His abundance so that I may reach the destiny that Jesus Christ has called me to fulfil and wants me to discover” (Philippians 3:12, TPT).
We sat in our old building with a new congregation for just over twelve months. In that time, God not only used the precious people there to minister to our weary hearts, but even allowed us the tender grace of witnessing some of the fruit that was growing out of the seed we had planted in that space. He showed us the truth of Isaiah’s words—that He provides water in the desert and streams in the wasteland so that we might be released to proclaim His praise (43:20-21). As we allowed ourselves to process our past, to voice our questions and grieve our losses, entrusting them to Him, He turned a place of disappointment into an oasis of delight demonstrating to us the depth of His redemptive power.
Like Paul, I’ve come to realize I will never exhaust the riches, the abundance that is found in Jesus. Jesus is my finish line. He is the picture on the box that I look upon to determine where the pieces of my life rightly belong. He is the One who brings perspective, beauty, truth, hope, redemption, and the promise of something more, something new. In Jesus, I find the grace to honor my past, to acknowledge both its beauty and its pain without getting stuck. My past is redeemed, and my hope for the future revived. In Jesus, all my ‘pieces’ find their meaning.
Even as I write this, I still hold pieces in my hand that are yet to be placed. Perhaps they will be positioned imminently, perhaps it will be some time before I know where they belong. When frustration begins to rise, I take a step back, I look at how much of the ‘picture’ God has already formed, and I allow His faithfulness to frame my ‘pieces.’
“But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious one” (Philippians 3:20-21, NIV).
My childhood summers were synonymous with lazy days by the beach, getting lost in the pages of a good book and jigsaw puzzles. Not just any jigsaw puzzles, mind you, but giant jigsaw puzzles with hundreds of pieces that required hours, if not days, to sort and deliberate over which section of the puzzle they belonged to. I constantly referred back to the image on the box for clues. Once complete, I was reluctant to ever return the pieces back to the box, wanting to somehow enshrine the puzzle and my achievement.
The feelings of frustration when I couldn’t get a piece to fit where I was convinced it belonged, remain vividly etched in my mind. I would turn them and then turn them again, trying over and over to make them fit, until eventually, I would walk away or work on a different section before attempting to place the piece again. Positioning just one piece wrongly could skew the whole picture, affecting all the surrounding pieces.
I’ve spent much of the past few years trying to figure out where various pieces of my own life ‘puzzle’ belong, wrestling with the tension of old and new, of past and present. With how to "forget the former things and not dwell on the past" (Isaiah 43:18), no matter how precious or painful that past might be, in order to have the capacity to fully and freely hold the new things God has for me. At times, I’ve found myself getting stuck holding on to pieces I’ve desperately wanted to make fit in my current season, even if they weren’t meant to—pieces God asked me to surrender and trust Him to rightly position.
A NEW BEGINNING
“You’ve been holding your father’s dream in your hands for a really long time and perhaps it’s time for you to hold some dreams of your own.”
The words of my mentor arrested me, inviting me, forcing me even, to evaluate the life I was living.
In my late teens, my now-husband and I helped my parents plant a church. It was a labor of love that we poured our hearts into for nearly eighteen years, nine of which I served on staff, eventually becoming a credentialed minister and associate pastor to my father, a role that truly felt like a desire fulfilled. Those years abounded with rich vibrant community and deep disappointments simultaneously.
Ten years into the church plant, this small faithful congregation had sacrificially sown of their time and finances to enable us to lease and renovate a building we could call home. Our days of setting up and packing down every week appeared to be over and we were going to put down roots in our community. At first, the church flourished and grew. All felt right and promising. But then, abruptly, we started hitting roadblock after roadblock, and entered a season marked by financial challenges, sickness, loss, and death. These challenges culminated in us deciding to return to renting a community facility to help relieve the financial pressures. We made the painful decision to assign our building lease to another local church and move on. But the reality was I could not simply leave my grief behind. Many of the losses in this period had touched me personally—I was amongst the women in our congregation who lost babies that year; it was my father who had suffered a series of strokes, and my dear friend that we had buried too soon.
In the latter years of this journey, lingering health issues made it necessary for my parents to step aside from being the Lead Pastors. They relocated an hour’s drive away to live by the beach and recover. Their absence, as well as the birth of our youngest child, caused me to question the various hats I had been wearing. I couldn’t shake the feeling God was calling me to something new, that He was asking me to let go of how I thought my life and ministry should look in order to allow Him to reshape and redefine my dreams.
At the suggestion of our leadership, I took a few weeks leave to pray and determine what I felt God was saying. I returned from my leave and offered my resignation, fully intending to remain a committed member of our church community. Yet only ten months later, it became apparent that to remain was not what God had planned for us. After a period of prayer and fasting and seeking counsel from trusted advisors, my husband and I sensed that God was inviting us to a new beginning and asking us to release the Church we had poured our lives into to a new beginning of their own.
It was hard to believe that after eighteen years of community, we were starting over. The picture that God was forming looked nothing like the ‘box’ I had been referring to, and I no longer knew where all the pieces belonged.
STRAINING TOWARD WHAT IS AHEAD
The old and the new are often indelibly entwined. I couldn’t amputate my past—it had formed me. But I also couldn’t keep grasping at what had been or even what I had hoped would be for the future. I needed to loosen my grip and shift my focus. In the words of the apostle Paul, it was time for me to "forget what was behind and strain towards what is ahead" (Philippians 3:13).
The motif in this and the surrounding verses is of an athlete running a race and all the time keeping the finish line firmly in sight. Paul knew well that we cannot take hold of all that Christ has for us if we are continually looking in the rearview mirror. Like the athlete he envisioned, we have to choose to press forward—to stop tilling the ground of our past and put our energy and focus into straining towards what is ahead. In the Greek, the word ‘strain’ is an athletic word depicting a runner using every muscle to stretch forwards. And that’s the truth. Sometimes it is a strain and a stretch to look toward the future and believe that something new is possible. It can take every fiber of our being to change our narrative and accept God’s perspective—to believe His truth, His promises, and His Word over and above our circumstances or past experiences.
As I began to press on and look ahead, I found the past to be a hurdle not only because of its disappointments, but also because of its highlights. As my disappointment whispered that it would never get better, my treasured memories spoke the same lie—that my future could never be better than my past, could never live up to what I had previously known.
I couldn’t bypass these hurdles. In order to keep running my race, I needed to clear them. I needed to allow God to show me how He saw these pieces that I could no longer place.
REVISITING THE PAST
In His infinite grace and wisdom, God took me back to a place of past disappointment to remind me that He wasn’t finished with my story yet; that if I could trust Him, there was still more to come.
As we hesitantly stepped away from the old and began to look towards the future, we decided to join the congregation led by my spiritual director and her husband. Her gentle and insightful wisdom had been invaluable in helping me work through all of the change and loss we had experienced, and they and their congregation felt like a safe place to sit while we continued to process our journey and build new community. The great irony of this decision was that they were the same church who had taken over our former church’s lease and premises. I found myself worshiping again in the same building that once embodied my dreams, yet now symbolized loss and failure.
At times, it felt overwhelming to be in this familiar place. I kept expecting to see my father pop out of his old office or to be greeted by someone I knew at the door. I knew every inch of the building—its history, its quirks and smells, the stories the walls could tell—and yet everything about it had changed. The old and new collided in my mind and grief would well up within me as I remembered the faces of people I had once stood shoulder to shoulder with in this very space. I felt the sting of disappointment afresh. Why had our old church not been able to enjoy the fruit of our sacrifices? Why had our story not had the ending we had believed and prayed for, and labored toward? Why did we have to start over? Why could I not have continued doing life and ministry with the people I had come to love so completely? If I was to be in this space again, why couldn’t it be with them?
Ever so gently and slowly, God gave me a different perspective, His perspective.
I had been viewing my life with a somewhat finite lens, so focused on the current part of the puzzle that was forming that I had lost sight of the big picture, the eternal picture.
In the scheme of eternity, our labors had not been futile. God did not see wasted efforts, He saw faithfulness. We had partnered with him to establish something in our community that was still extending His love and truth, even if we no longer inhabited it.
Where I saw a scattered people, He saw a people sent out. He planted these mature seeds of disciples in new ground to keep building and strengthening His wider church.
Where I saw barrenness, He saw pruning—areas of my life and heart that He was preparing and cultivating for greater fruitfulness.
This new perspective didn’t completely undo my disappointment, but it did help me to stop dwelling on it. I realized God wasn’t asking me to forget the past as much as He was asking me to reposition it. To frame it with His Kingdom purposes and then allow it to fade into the background so He could bring a new section of my ‘puzzle’ to the forefront. Ironically, the only way I could regain my focus on His faithfulness was by looking at my past. The very things I needed to no longer dwell on also held the key to my being able to press on.
In the same way, when Isaiah called the Israelites to forget the former and see the new thing God was doing, he first recounted the ways in which God had previously worked on their behalf, reminding them that He had made a way for them out of slavery and through the Red Sea, into a new beginning. If He had done it then, He could do it now. He encouraged the Israelites to allow God’s prior acts of faithful provision to fuel in them an expectation for something new again—no matter how impossible that might have seemed.
THERE IS ALWAYS MORE AHEAD
I have often contemplated the stark contrasts found in the life of Paul. He was a man who miraculously and dramatically encountered God. He planted churches and wrote much of what we now call the New Testament, witnessing healings and countless conversions. And yet, he was also a man who prior to his conversion, persecuted believers and had to live with their blood on his hands. He was shipwrecked, rejected, imprisoned, and beaten. This man, who had much to celebrate and much to wrestle with, tells us not only that he presses on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of him, but that he does not consider himself yet to have taken hold of it (Philippians 3:12-13). Paul understood that no matter how much of God’s grace and favor he had already experienced, there was still more for him to lay hold of and live out. His past had convinced him of it.
So he pressed on. Not out of obligation, nor of drudgery, but fuelled by his passion for Jesus.
“I run with passion into His abundance so that I may reach the destiny that Jesus Christ has called me to fulfil and wants me to discover” (Philippians 3:12, TPT).
We sat in our old building with a new congregation for just over twelve months. In that time, God not only used the precious people there to minister to our weary hearts, but even allowed us the tender grace of witnessing some of the fruit that was growing out of the seed we had planted in that space. He showed us the truth of Isaiah’s words—that He provides water in the desert and streams in the wasteland so that we might be released to proclaim His praise (43:20-21). As we allowed ourselves to process our past, to voice our questions and grieve our losses, entrusting them to Him, He turned a place of disappointment into an oasis of delight demonstrating to us the depth of His redemptive power.
Like Paul, I’ve come to realize I will never exhaust the riches, the abundance that is found in Jesus. Jesus is my finish line. He is the picture on the box that I look upon to determine where the pieces of my life rightly belong. He is the One who brings perspective, beauty, truth, hope, redemption, and the promise of something more, something new. In Jesus, I find the grace to honor my past, to acknowledge both its beauty and its pain without getting stuck. My past is redeemed, and my hope for the future revived. In Jesus, all my ‘pieces’ find their meaning.
Even as I write this, I still hold pieces in my hand that are yet to be placed. Perhaps they will be positioned imminently, perhaps it will be some time before I know where they belong. When frustration begins to rise, I take a step back, I look at how much of the ‘picture’ God has already formed, and I allow His faithfulness to frame my ‘pieces.’
“But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious one” (Philippians 3:20-21, NIV).
Here you'll find a collection of my articles that have been featured in The Joyful Life Magazine.
RSS Feed