new season

God spoke to us very clearly. It happened late Monday night, September 1st. Carla and I had already crawled into bed and turned out the lights. We thought it was time for sleep, but the Holy Spirit had other plans. It didn’t begin with any kind of excitement. Carla asked me a harmless, rather generic question. But, for a number of reasons, I began to unpack a lot of spiritual and emotional mess. I was able to articulate and verbalize some deep, inner feelings and thoughts that I had only vaguely sensed for an entire year. It was like a light came on in my spirit and I could finally recognize my surroundings. I told Carla (and God) about how difficult and trying the past year has been. I confessed my doubts, fears and struggles. Whew! I felt better after that. I closed my eyes very peacefully and assumed we could now get some rest. Wrong again. Carla sat up in bed. Now God had something to say.

September 1st marked the one year anniversary of our move from Tennessee to Washington. It had been exactly one year ago, to the night, that we experienced our own spiritual “D-Day.” God had already warned us about this experience. We knew what we were in for! More than two years ago He told us that, like Jeremiah, we would begin this new journey with uprooting and tearing down (1:10). Now, we assumed this was the uprooting and tearing down of the religious spirit and false assumptions of the people of Seattle. Right?! We were going to come sweeping in here, like wonderful little heroes, and, as always, fix it all. We were the blessed saints of the real faith that these poor heathens always needed. We simply had to uproot and tear down their ideas and give them the truth. Well, that wasn’t exactly it. We misinterpreted the message. Maybe that’s happening in some senses, but upon reflection it seems that the uprooting and tearing down was mostly about us.

Quite frankly, I am utterly astounded at how much of this experience has centered around us. Weren’t we coming here to minister to?! This wasn’t supposed to be about us! Yet, it has been. Over and over again God has uprooted our false assumptions, torn down our pride and our ideas and our plans. Carla and I have found ourselves, on many occasions, at the absolute end of our rope. It’s has been a brutal death match on so many levels: physically sick, emotionally lonely, spiritually confused and stuck. We have come to the end of a very difficult year as much more humble, contrite, broken and prayerful people. And we thank the Lord.

But that season is over. God told us. Through Carla, He spoke to both of us. The uprooting and tearing down has come to an end. Not that we’ll never experience it again. Not that we won’t see traces of it as one season naturally bleeds into the next. But, as a whole, it’s over. It’s time for a new mindset and a new perspective.

The next phase, according to Jeremiah 1:10, is to “destroy and overthrow.” We don’t know what that means exactly, but we do know it’s different. Thank God it’s different! For several weeks we have sensed it was time for a shift. We even made the monumental decision to meet more often and in the mornings instead of evenings. That was huge for us! Now, God has confirmed the hugeness of it all. That decision was in obedience to this new season, this new phase of the journey. And I have a feeling…my gut just tells me…year two is going to blow us all away! YES LORD!!!