Scripture: Psalm 130:1-8
Journal: How are you disoriented these days?
What do you think God is up to in that?
What is his desire for you? What
is he trying to help you become?
Reflection:
No matter how you slice it, we are living in a
season of disorientation. Things
are not as they have always been, which brings confusion and chaos and sadness
and anxiety and fear. There is the grief
of having to let go of the way things have been, and there is a fear and
uncertainty to not knowing how things will look when this season comes to an
end. And it will come to an end.
The fact is that there are
three basic seasons in the spiritual life: orientation, disorientation, and
reorientation. Half the battle is
knowing what season you are in and choosing to embrace that season, rather than
ignore or deny or resist it. The other
half of the battle is the realization that whatever season we find ourselves in
is actually leading us somewhere. It is
taking us to somewhere new, to a reorientation.
It is not taking us back to the good old days where it was easy and
comfortable, but forward to a totally new place. It is leading us to a way of being and seeing
that is different, and better, than that from which we came.
But living in a season of
disorientation certainly has its challenges.
In fact, we would love to bypass it or escape it if we could, but we
cannot. Therefore, we must learn to let
go. Letting go might be the most
significant spiritual discipline of the season of disorientation. And letting go always involves some amount of
grief. So don’t be surprised if this season
involves some pain and sorrow and sadness.
Don’t run from it, but enter into it.
Learn from it. Let it build and
grow you. For the refusal to let go
comes at an even higher cost: frustration, anger, bitterness, despair, depression,
etc. So we must, by God’s grace, learn to
live well in our current season. We must
learn to let go well, which is going to call for some significant trust. Trust that God is good. Trust that God is always at work, even in the
darkest and most painful times of life.
And trust that God is up to something good in and through us, regardless
of how dire and desperate the circumstances appear. He is leading us not back to an old season of
orientation, but ahead to a new and beautiful season of reorientation.
God always wants more for
us than the life (and the season) we are currently experiencing. And this more does not usually come
easy. So rest assured that this season—as
hard and as dark as it might seem—is certainly no exception. God is more concerned with our growth than he
is with our comfort. He is always about
our becoming.
Prayer
Closing
Prayer: I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his
word I put my hope. My soul waits for
the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for
the morning. O Israel, put your trust in
the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. Amen.
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