silent seasons of growth.

Sometimes the way God transforms is not quick nor dramatic. Sometimes it is in a very quiet, subtle way - often unseen by the eye - like the way the morning sun dries up the night’s dew every morning before many feet step upon the dry, erect grass - facing the Sun, and ready for the day. Or the way the world so slowly spins and orbits to keep life maintained.

Sometimes the way He grows us is similar to the growth of our bones as a child. Unseen, hidden, but lengthening and pushing the skin to grow and form around it all the while. Or like the strengthening of the lungs over our first months breathing oxygen, stronger with each breath, resilience formed over time - in the womb of darkness.

I look back at God’s absolute and utter faithfulness to grow me, to expand me, to lengthen me, to transform me. He’s present within the deepest places of who I am, and has intentionality in every aspect of my story. In my busyness, and my life maintenance, I often am unaware of personal growth. I move forward, fumbling often, frustrated by my own short-comings, or even the chill of my heart colder than I would have wanted it to be at 32 - all by any own immature, and ungraceful self-assessment. I want to feel the burning, every moment, as I did when I was 22 - I want to weep and scream and feel the raging seas and the whirlwind of His glory. Sometimes, however, He knows the quietness is the best thing for my growth - like a seed silently bursting forth with green life below the ground. Hidden, as if in a grave under soil and sand, being transformed from a dead seed to a living, oxygenating life force. Faith ruminating that says, “Though I can’t see it, though I can’t feel it, I am being changed.”

Sometimes God calls us to the extravagant offerings, but He is always calling us to the consistent forward movements. I think, often, these extreme moments in our story are much more for us than they are ever for Him. He knows that and so He kindly weaves them in. They help bring energy to our frames and drama to our souls. What He asks for is the quiet and consistent life of love. One that repays offense and injustice with heaps of love. One that fights hard to keep hunger alive in the human soul and never grow weary with the deep longing in our soul that cries out for the more. One that shows up, day after day, in obedience and moves forward when everything hurts and you’re tired and worn out and want to quit. It’s a life, no matter the seasons, remains fixated on the Man who awoke our hearts to love and made us orphans no longer. It says, “What next” and obeys regardless of cost. It daily relinquishes its right to comfort, to acknowledgment, to self-reliance, to having the story told in our favor. It runs into His arms again and again, like a child unashamed, and letting Him hold us like children again and again.

It lives for the Audience of One. Truly - it does not despise the small beginnings, the hidden seasons, nor the places of death.

Transformation - the pathway of the disciple - is not one that feels good. It is however, one that is never walked alone. If you quiet your own busy soul enough you will feel Him so near, and if you look to the right or the left, you will see a company of others walking with you. Some in this age, and other heroes in history gone.

He’s always doing, changing, transforming. He’s faithful to finish the good work He began in us - regardless of my own fatigue, discouragement, or immaturity. He keeps His promises. He’s unrelenting in the story of my soul and the story of the ages.

The deepest places of my being say, "Come " And all of us on this road upward say, "Come " And every thirsty soul says, “Come”; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost - and let us Rest in the promise of forever rest and eternal fulfillment. That when He comes, and we see Him face to face, all the wrestling of the life of faith - that moves on even though it does not see it clearly - will be utterly changed.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”