Every January, I ask the Lord to speak His word over my life… a hint, a whisper (Psalm 25:14) of what He wants to do in and through my life in the days ahead.
Last year the word He spoke was “delight”. If you read that entry, Called to Delight, you will remember I was so excited to launch into all God held in that word. However, I was idealistic and unprepared.
Walking through this year has taught me that two things can be true at once. There can be great pain, such as the late-stage diagnosis of a dear and precious mentor. The timing of that pain can hit right alongside the great joy of an eldest son’s engagement.
Both realities advanced on 20 years of my heart’s affections. One led to an end (for now); the other is leading toward new beginning after new beginning.
And those are only two of the yo-yo scenarios that have kept my heart, and many in our community, running to an Almighty God for answers.
The sudden death of a friend… the healthy birth of another’s baby… marriages breaking down… people being freed from addiction and choosing Christ. Up. Down. Back. Forth. No time or space for the soul to sit, rest, breathe before being yanked into another heart posture.
I believe the world has always been thus. The pace of it all just seems to have increased, or perhaps it’s merely our awareness.
Either way, it is no surprise to God. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24:12 that “because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most [would] grow cold.” Of course that is not to say that all pain, struggle, and loss are wickedness, merely that the entropy of all things due to the laws of sin and death wearies us.
If that weren’t enough, we have a very intentional enemy whose goal it is to break down, brick by brick, our true perception of the loving God who created us – convincing us that YHWH cannot be trusted. This foe twists our own identities and perceptions until we are quivering heaps of anxious flesh and bone clinging to the fraying thread of our souls.
“This is delight, Lord?” we ask in time with the throb in our aching chests and deep circles under our eyes. He answers in the tenderness and compassion with which He always encounters the suffering. “I am delight.”
Just that word is enough to fill our darkness with light, our despair with hope, and our weight with wonder. In the midst of a world we were never called to carry, our Great Designer invites us to delight in Him, and lift every circumstance up for His evaluation, wisdom, and direction.
When hard things happen, we can so swiftly be pulled into the fear that this will be the new normal. My dear friend Elizabeth speaks of the enemy’s attempt to rob us with the lie, “the happy days are over.”
But that is not what we see of the character of our dear YHWH. In Isaiah 43:19 we see His true and continual heart. “Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”
It was in that sentiment, I heard His word over me for this year, “Expectation.”
Do you feel His invitation to expectation? No matter what has transpired, our God is eternal! I believe there will never be a moment when He will not be “doing something new.” Whether it is life out of life — like flowering plants, fruit, and offspring — or new life from death, He is Creator. There is more coming. His creative capacity is endless and unimaginable.
- So what about you? Are there places in your life that have hardened due to belief that “the happy days are over” or that no good can come from the hard circumstance?
- What would it take for you to entertain hope that God may be doing a new thing through both good and bad?
- What would it take for you to open your heart and your spirit to the life of expectation again?
I invite you to take some moments and journal about those questions. Ask the Lord to view the landscape of your heart and show you the places that need healing and hope. Then ask Him to speak hope over the days ahead. Ask Him to reignite within you a spirit of expectation.
Now decide how you will walk that out each day. He has so much more for you. If I can encourage you, please reach out to me here.
You were created to live a life in His voice, a Life of Calling.
So much love,
Tammi