In Every Season

When I was in Haiti, I saw a nation held captive to starvation, political corruption, and voodoo, among many other chains. It was easy for me to lean into the Lord's side, whispering the Father's name daily to keep myself stable as I served these people (who still need so much help). When I was there, it was clear that I needed God. I was desperate for Him, because I was surrounded by a living hell.

Quick note: I am currently beginning research on agriculture and long-term sustainability methods and projects that could be effective in Haiti, so if you have thoughts and/or a heart to help, shoot me an email at lsw10a@acu.edu

Being back in America, it's quite easy to forget my need to be in daily communion with the Father. In my current season, I'm not daily surrounded by spiritual attacks, I don't see starving people with calcium deficiencies each day, and I'm not having to emotionally pour out my heart to God because of a child who will never run and play again due to an earthquake. I'm not saying I never see tangible manifestations of hell in my current season, it's just that they aren't prevalent to me right now. On the other end, I haven't exactly been experiencing hardcore miraculous happenings, either. I haven't been witnessing physical healings each week, no angels have visited my apartment lately, and I'm still awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. My life is quite ordinary: I go to school, I partake in bible study, I publish blog posts, and I hang out with my friends and family. I serve in all of those scenarios, because in every situation I am called to love, but it's easy to forget my need to call upon the Father or to submit to the Spirit in the midst of commonplace happenings that (seemingly) lack spiritual zeal or fervor.

Check out Mission of Hope if you're interested in how they're doing kingdom things, if you want to help with their work, or if you'd like to learn more about Haiti.

Jesus, as He lives and walks by the power of the Holy Spirit, shows us in the Scriptures a perfect example of the relational dynamic between God the Father and a human being. This personal relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father is shown to be close-knit all of the time yet varied in characteristics and seasons, an observation that teaches much to Christ-followers today, because what this tells us is that a relationship with God is colorful, that it consists of differing seasons and does not look the exact same every single day.

Perhaps the most intriguing part about the first four Gospels is that each presents a unique portrayal of Jesus Christ, though it is argued to still be the same Jesus in each book. To John, Jesus is embodied in a divine form. To Mark, the focus is seemingly on Jesus as the one who suffers for the sake of the world, the one who experienced ultimate shame when He did not deserve to. We can learn so much from these differing perspectives of the Gospels, including what it looks like to have a daily, relational, moment-by-moment walk with the Father.

There is much debate about what it looks like to have a relationship with God and if a personal relationship is meant to exist at all, and I think a biblical view suggests that a Christ-follower should keep two perspectives of God in his or her head: immanent and transcendent. On one hand, God is shown in the Scriptures (Genesis 1, as a reference) to be divine and King, keeping Him exalted from humanity. On another hand, God is also shown to be personal and relational (Genesis 2) with His creation, which includes human beings. A biblical view of God consists of a balance between these two mindsets: immanence and transcendence. Jesus Christ found it important to commune with God the Father, so I believe doing so should be important to the Christ-follower as well.

So, experiencing God and having a relationship with Him is biblical. However, it is hard to pinpoint exactly how this should look. Thankfully, we have Jesus and His example to learn much from.

Though I do not think any one comprehensive list can be made outlining exactly what a relationship with God must look like, I do think values and truths can be extracted from the Scriptures that can be helpful to a Christ-follower who longs to nourish his or her relationship with the Father.

The life of Jesus shows us that a relationship with God is first and foremost in loving other people. When asked about the Greatest Commandment, Jesus replies that it is to love the Lord with all of one's heart, soul, and mind and the second is like it, to love one's neighbor as oneself. These two commands are said to be of equal importance, and this is because to love another person is indeed to love God. There is no greater way to love God than to love His children. To experience the heart of God is this: to love your neighbor.

We can also see a relationship with God exemplified in the life of Jesus in the form of prayer, and perhaps many of us would consider this a more direct way of encountering God. Prayer means communing with the very throne of God, only enabled to us by the grace of God and through the work of the Holy Spirit in one's life. Prayer is a difficult action to describe, and that is simply because it cannot be merely defined with a formula or in human words. When Jesus describes prayer, He outlines lovely phrasings:

'This, then, is how you should pray. Our Father in Heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one'. -Matthew 6:9-13

These words show us much about prayer, but mostly I think we can extract one truth: prayer is about intimacy with God for the purposes of the kingdom. When we interact with God, a beautiful happening takes place. We are molded. We are loved. We are reminded of grace, and when any or all of these things happen we are then better able to love other people. When we interact with God, the kingdom collides with earth.

Prayer is not about how many words are uttered or how eloquent one sounds. A simple prayer of a desperate sinner uttering 'Abba' offered up in faith is more lovely to the ears of God than a stone-cold, dry, facade of words strung together for the sake of how they sound to men.

Prayer is powerful because it is an immediate way of communing with God, no matter what season a person is in. The walk of a Christ-follower is solely found in trusting God, and this is easier to do in some moments than others. When we encounter the spiritual realm, it is easy to declare the presence of God, but what about whenever the divine isn't quite so obvious? How does our faith fare then?

The metaphysical realm of God-angels, demons, miracles, and such-was important to Jesus, so in some sense it needs to be important to the Christ-follower as well, but what's intriguing to me is that not every moment of Jesus' life was centered on these happenings. Sometimes He merely lived out the ordinary, walking through fairly explainable and comprehensible to the human mind seasons of life: He ate with His family, He fashioned tables from wood as a carpenter, He joked and drank wine with His friends.

In every season of life He communed with His Father, and this is shown in the Scriptures by His demeanor if by nothing else. He is gentle-spirited, courageous, kind, unafraid to extend love to anyone around Him. Other people are enriched simply by being around Him. One mere sentence from the lips of Jesus could melt a heart of stone. We see Jesus' relationship with the Father in the form of prayer and direct encounters most certainly, but I think even more so we see evidence of a relational dynamic in the way in which He walks through life: in a trusting manner. Jesus trusts God. He has a deep intimacy with the Father as He walks by the Spirit and encounters everyday experiences: teaching His disciples, interacting with His parents, and traveling from town to town. He trusts God in the rich seasons and the dry: when He is declared to be King, when many believe in Him and listen to His stories, or when He was betrayed by His best friends and when He was hung on a cross.

Tonight I'm allowing all of my jumbled thoughts to be transformed into blogged ramblings, but I think what I'm getting at is this: one vital way to reflect Jesus and to embody the calling of a Christ-follower is to trust God in every season. As life continues and each day passes, the Christ-follower is called to sing a song reflecting the everyday mystery of intimacy with God the Father. Perhaps the miracles and visions will come, or the theophanies will take place, and in those seasons one must abide in the love of Christ. However, it is equally important if not more so to be able to intentionally choose to remain in His love when the Father does not bend the laws of physics or appear in a divine form, because the truth is, some seasons-if not most-are really quite ordinary and explainable by natural laws, and in these seasons it is important to note that God and His love is not any less present. When the ordinary world continues to be ordinary, the Christ-follower must put his or her trust in a love that is extraordinary. When a Jesus-follower has roots in a spiritual God, then he or she is able to live gracefully and joyfully through commonplace experiences such as being in love, raising a child, working eight to five, traveling abroad, experiencing surprise, receiving the expected, and the simple (or not so simple) existing. God's passion and energetic life is in the little things, and I think oftentimes I forget this. His love is able to be experienced in every corner of the earth, so let's pray for His kingdom to come wherever we are, whatever season we find ourselves in.

The heart impacted by the grace of God is a heart that trusts the Father, the Lord of Light, the God of Goodness, in any and all seasons.