This season has the potential for the greatest personal growth and transformation. If I only I’d allow it...
It’s during times of crisis, confusion, and chaos we so naturally lose ourselves. We’re desperate for comfort, whether it be in definitive answers or consoling relationships. When we become is consumed with what’s going on around us, we risk unconsciously relinquishing control of our internal world to the external. In other words, we surrender our peace.
Depression and despair seep into our minds like a slow leak. One we may not recognize until it’s too late and we find ourselves drowning in hopelessness. We realize that nothing outside of us has provided what we need, at least sufficiently, and so helplessness threatens to overtake us. If only we’d take a minute to slow down and search within.
When the Israelites were in the wilderness - a season of chaos, confusion, and crisis - God faithfully provided everything they needed. They had sufficient food. Their clothes did not shred. Their shoes did not wear. Unfortunately, they were so fixated on what they knew before, what the Lord had delivered them from, they began to fantasize it in such a way that made them borderline delusional.
When we’re confronted with the unknown, it’s amazing what we romanticize.
They wanted to go back to oppression and abuse, but what they saw was a false sense of control and certainty created by fear. All they had on where they were going was what the Lord spoke to them, which required faith in what they had no previous context for. They felt completely out of their element, and yet they were being led and cared for by the presence of God Himself. Daily they had to choose what would be the most powerful influence in their lives - faith or feelings.
I find myself in that tension. Faith or feelings? Feelings are real, but not always true. They make wonderful teachers, but terrible leaders. But when we become so externally focused, our feelings can not only shape our perception of reality, they can define it. And that only makes things more complicated. It makes me feel out of control. Faith refines and interprets our perspective in truth. Yet it comes at great cost. Oftentimes we must surrender our will, our feelings, and our desires to step into and see beyond ourselves. That’s what growth demands. We have to grow beyond our comfort and understanding.
In times like these, when everything can feel out of control, we forget that we do have control over - our choices. And what we choose matters.
So, here and now, what does it look like to choose faith? To recognize how you feel is real, and to surrender it to the One who is leading us through this wilderness? Even now an invitation has been extended to us. An opportunity to move from glory to glory and strength to strength. To be transformed as our minds are continually renewed not by the world’s standards and explanations, but by His word and presence. He has given us everything we need to not just survive, but to thrive, even when we are confined to our homes and separated from our friends and family. It is our chose to receive. We may not fully understand or comprehend all that’s going on. We may not even “feel” full of hope and courage. But that is what faith is - a choice. The choice to keep moving forward even when we don’t know the way. To keep pressing on even when its hurts. To believe that He is working even when we don’t see it or feel it. To be still and know that He is God, and we are not. To trust that His intentions towards us are always good, even in the midst of difficult and breaking circumstances.
The question is, what will you do with the precious gift that is this season? Who will you choose to become, knowing that such transformation comes from what you are sowing day in and day out? How will you steward such a time as this? In what ways do you need to take control of yourself, and the choices set before you?