Lean In

This year continues to surprise us; I think it’s safe to say it hasn’t gone according to anyone’s plans. No one could have guessed where we’d be in June 2020, but here we are: adjusting to new normals, having our paradigms shifted, trying to catch our footing in uncertain territory. 

I find that in times like this it’s all too easy to power down and tune out. I’ve experienced this inner conflict over the past few weeks while a desire to seek God and an ever-so-appealing invitation to “just check-out” battle it out in my mind and heart. It's the easy route; our society offers a myriad of ways to numb the pain, cure the disappointment, and slide through these uncomfortable days with hardly any effort. But when I quiet my harried soul and listen, I hear the Lord say again - lean in. Lean in to the awkward, uncertain, uncomfortable; lean in, because I’m doing a new thing. I’m moving the hearts of my people to burn with compassion and hunger for righteousness. I’m blowing the breath of my Spirit across this nation and shaking off the dust, getting back down to the foundation. We will begin to build again.

There’s a song we’ve been singing at church, “Graves into Gardens”. Some of the words go like this:

You turn mourning to dancing

You give beauty for ashes

You turn shame into glory

You're the only one who can

You turn graves into garden

You turn bones into armies

You turn seas into highways

You're the only one who can

I believe this is what the Lord is doing in this season. He is renewing, refreshing and reinvigorating- but we have a part to play in this chapter. We have the responsibility to engage. We have the invitation to do the hard things. We get to decide not to give in to distraction. We can choose to lean into the uncomfortable growth that leads to glory and listen carefully to hear the loving words of a good, trustworthy Father. 

So as you go into the rest of your week, invite Him to shake off the dust. Ask Him: What is my role in this new chapter? What do you have for me to do here with you? Who are you going to be to me in this season? What tools and people have you placed around me for such a time as this?

Hebrews 12:1-3 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Amen.