A time for everything

Life is filled with goodbyes. It's just the nature of it. We say goodbye to single life when we get married, goodbye to money when we buy a house, goodbye to our favourite childhood dress when we finally grow out of it. Seasons reflect this too. Leaves fall off trees, rain washes away dust, the sun melts the snow.
With the goodbyes come 'hello's' as we bring in the change- moving home, gaining new friends, seeing the sun after months of grey sky...

We can't expect to stay in the same season forever. We know that the life we have now wont look exactly the same 20 years on. Kids grow up, new friendships take shape, we grow older...
...But we can be excited that with new changes comes growth, as we are challenged to adapt to a new situation.
Sometimes it's a hard change. Maybe we lose someone or something dear to us, or we get made redundant from the job we've held for years. It's not a change we expected, or wanted to be in, but we're faced with this new reality of life and with the question: how am i going to live in this new season?

Ecclesiastes 3 talks about a right time for everything on this earth. There is a time to live, and a time to die, a time to cry and another to laugh, a time to wage war and a time to build peace.

As we enter into a new season we can trust that God has us here for a reason. Sometimes it is so we can learn where our dependancy comes from. Do we depend on ourselves in all situations? Or those around us? Or God?

We can also live in the season we are in with expectancy that this will not be forever. There is a time for everything. After winter comes spring, after summer comes autumn. It might take a while, but it will get there, and we don't have to rush it. Does spring come any faster if you get your hairdryer out and start melting the snow on your door step? It's important to recognise the season we are in. If it's time for winter, we need to wear warm clothes. If it is the time for mourning, we need to do just that.

As we go through the seasons of life we recognise that the last spring we had is not going to look the same as the next spring. Change brings in new realities for our lives. New things have come, and others have gone away. The things we find joy in change, where we go for comfort sometimes looks different.

My move to Mozambique will bring me into a new season as i say goodbye to friends and family here, grieving that loss, and celebrating the new life i will have in another place. But before this happens, other seasons will take place.

I've already been challenged with saying goodbye to some of my favourite people.
Craig and Janelle Palmer are significant friends who have walked alongside me since i was a teenager, and losing their constant presence in my life will bring me into a new season. At the moment that feels a bit like a 'winter'. I think of all the positivity they have brought into my life with their words of encouragement, love and kindness, and think of how i will miss having these friends around me whom i can share anything with.
And then i think of how much they have taught me. And how their spiritual journeys have encouraged me in my walk with God. This has lasting consequences. Their investment in my life was not just for me and i don't want to waste that on myself. I have had a season of learning and growing alongside some special people as we've discovered together more of who God is and how He works. I don't know what this new season will bring but i can be confident that God has used this last season to shape me for what is ahead.
And i am excited because i get to watch my friends enter a new season themselves. One that will be challenging as they move away from the support networks they have built up here, but also exciting as they step further into where God is leading them and benefit from trusting in his provision for their lives.

I'm sure there are many of us who right now are facing a new season in our lives. As we step into this, let us be confident that there is a time for everything. Whatever you are coming into now- the joy of reaping a harvest, the pain of losing a loved one, the hardship of saying goodbye, be confident that while everything on earth may pass away, Our Lord and King remains forever, never leaving nor forsaking us.

Missing the mark

A few weeks ago i submitted the best assignment of my course.. Probably of my life. I spent time researching and studying, and put a lot of effort in to produce a stand out piece.

I'm not the greatest student and when it comes to studying i can be distracted by a million different things before even starting the assignment. Maybe the analogy of ripping off a bandaid works well for me- it takes a long time to build up the courage to even start an essay and then BAM it's done quickly, only leaving a few emotional scars behind. 

Ok maybe it's not that bad. But it's not always the best experience for me. Except this essay. I loved it. From the moment i started researching i felt like fog was lifting and my whole view on life was shifting and growing. It was a pretty positive feeling. I submitted the assignment with full confidence of an HD (high distinction) even though throughout my studies this mark has been extrememly rare, like as in almost completely non existent. 

And then last week, the results came in. I logged into the system with my heart pumping hard from the excitement. 

And then i saw it. my mark was less then glorious. It wasn't even near the HD i expected. Not even close. Infact it was the worst mark i'd gotten all year. 

I'm not going to lie and say i didnt have a moment of weakness and cry. And then i got angry. How could my lecturer give me this mark? Couldnt they see the effort i put in? 

But as i read the well written comments even in my hurt i could see that i'd missed half the question entirely. 

I was completely off the mark.

Has that ever happened to you? Perhaps it wasn't an assignment. Maybe it was in a relationship. You've seen a friend in trouble and you've gone out of your way to help them, only to discover that wasn't what they wanted from you. Maybe they just needed their friend there listening and caring for them. 

Maybe theres been other circumstances where you have tried really hard to achieve something, only to discover that you'd missed the point completely. 

I'm not saying our effort is in vain. My assignment research taught me lots. The effort you put in for your friend shows that you were trying to help. It's not bad. But how much better would it have been if i'd read the question and answered it? How loved would that friend feel knowing they'd been heard in their struggle? 

Some times we get so caught up in our own efforts that we forget the question entirely, the very reason we're in this place to begin with. 

This reminds me of Matthew 15. Jesus is approached by some Pharisees and teachers of the law who ask him why his disciples are breaking the law by not abiding to the tradition of making themselves clean before they eat. 

Jesus turns it back on them. He questions why they would break God's commands (specifically in this case of honouring their mother and father) for the sake of their tradition? Isn't God's command sovereign over the laws humans have enforced? They had missed the mark. They wanted to serve God but in their efforts to do it right, they had made it complicated and harder for people to follow Him. 

Jesus as Messiah offered himself as the perfect sacrifice for us, so that we might be forgiven of our Sin and restored to our Father, God. He gave us His Holy Spirit so that we may be filled with power and authority to serve Him and share His love with the world.

He asks us to love him, and love others. Have we forgotten that message?

It's not bad to have rules to govern a body of people. But lets not get so tied down in the nitty gritty of how we worship God, that we forget to actually worship God. Let's keep our focus on God. Let's lean on His biblical truths and keep Jesus at the centre. Let's be spirit-led, not trying so hard on our own and then missing out on what Jesus came to offer us. In other words, maybe we need to strip back. Maybe i need to look at the traditions i have in life and see if they're pointing towards Christ or if i've gotten so caught up in these rules for myself and the people around me that i've forgotten why they were there in the first place...

And next time, i'll read my assignment question more carefully..