WORD:
I wholeheartedly believe that sometimes the Lord calls us into new places. New relationships. New seasons. And I think that as much as we may want to believe that we love change, I believe that very few of us that can truthfully admit that going into a season of complete “newness” doesn’t scare us, even if just a little. Because of our sin nature that often leads to difficulty in fully trusting the Lord, we don’t always approach newness with the excitement or peace that we should. I know I’m guilty of this.
For example; during the summer of 2016, God did a crazy thing and opened a gigantic door to “newness” in my life, giving me the opportunity to spend a three-month summer working as a leader at a summer camp in the mountains, 1,700 miles away from home.
To say this experience would be a new one for me is an understatement. I had never done the kind of leadership work this job would require of me, I had never lived in the mountains miles from civilization, and I didn’t know a single person at this camp. So when I say this was an opportunity for newness, I can’t help but emphasize just how dang NEW it was.
And as needed as that opportunity was in my life at the time and as excited as I was to be able to live it out, I can’t say I went into it without any anxiety.
But through that season of newness (which became one of the most blessed experiences I have ever been given), the Lord reminded me the importance of an incredibly valuable lesson: to fully, completely, utterly trust Him in the new.
Had I gone into that season of complete and utter newness without any reliance on Him at all, I would quickly have crashed and burned. I would have doubted there was any beauty in my opportunity to serve in that place. I would have let my own worries and anxieties consume me as I came to the realization of the true situation I had just committed to.
Though it was a daily struggle to completely trust Him with all that He was doing in my time living at that camp, I now see so much beauty that came from that initial choice to trust Him simply in accepting that new opportunity when it was first presented to me. And through learning to trust Him more and more each day in that season of newness (though it wasn’t easy and still continues to be a daily challenge), He taught me more valuable lessons than I ever expected to learn, revealing to me more beauty than I ever could have dreamed of encountering.
So, that’s exactly it, I think - that His purposes into calling us into newness may not always be so much about what happens to us within it, but rather as His chance to see how we will react to this newness. How we will invite Him into it as we walk through it and how we will intentionally take steps to trust Him along the way.
So my push for you is this: don’t run from newness. In fact, ask God for it, seek it out, pursue it. And when you find it, trust His guidance in it. And that He will bring beauty to even the situations that bring you the most anxiety because of the depth of the unknown they involve. He will bring a beauty into the newness beyond your wildest dreams, if only you’ll lean into and trust Him with it. Hallelujah that we have a God we can fully trust in every season, especially in the new.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
MEAL: Tomato soup and grilled cheese – the ultimate comfort foods.
MUSIC: “Jesus I Come” by Elevation Worship.
PRAYER: Lord, we pray that You provide us with newness. That you open doors we never imagined could be opened and provide us with opportunities we never thought we’d have a part in – and that when we approach this newness, that You give us the trust to lean on You, allowing You to guide our every step, action, thought, and word for Your glory and not our own. Amen.
TIME: Listen to the quiet stirrings of the Spirit this week as it guides you; push yourself to step out of your comfort zone into all newness that this week brings, taking heart that the Lord has you in the palm of His hand and can be trusted with wherever He may be leading you, no matter how new or uncomfortable.
Writer Name: Jamie Galen
Contact: jamie.gee on Instagram, www.facebook.com/jamiegee123