TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

If I had to choose a Psalm to best describe my life right now it would be Psalm 37.

These days feel categorized into three categories:

1. The Holy Spirit filled transformation days. In the month leading up to the accident, it felt like we were on fire. The Lord was moving so personally for us, answering prayers, sending dreams, filling the imagination with visions,… we were soaking up the fire-filled season where loving our Father was easy. Loving Him was loud. The river was tangible. We knew we were in deeper waters and it was such a treasure.
2. The accident. That in itself felt like a pivot point. As the psalmist writes, “He will manifest as your justice,” He manifested as our justice, fighting for us, throwing up pillows of fire around us. Our wraparound God.
3. The aftermath. We’re here now and this is a part of our story to tuck into our hearts. As Hannah Brencher often talks about ‘tentpole moments’, this is that. We’re walking through a tentpole moment as a family, figuring out how to walk in joy, how to fan the flame, and what life looks like after. Face to face with death, and now we see life’s fleeting beauty and the value of our every second. I don’t want to do everything just because everything is available for me to do. I want to cultivate not just the person my Father saved my life for me to rise up and become, but also care for our four little ones and this family we are rising up to become the fierce, kingdom-minded people that my Father saw value in the futures of to send teams of help to surround us.

Dig a little more into Psalm 37 and you’ll find verse 7:

“Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh.”

These days are a bit noisy. Not in a bad way or anything- just full of ways to serve and valuable ministries to become a part of and attend. There are all sorts of ways to connect to community, which is something that the Lord is calling His people to in this hour, sealing us in the thickness of His unity. He is tying knots around us, singing beautiful melodies through the relationships we create as we grab onto new hands. As we find new joy in each other, He is seeing a piece of His kingdom slip through the windows of heaven, landing on a dark earth, making His bride shine even brighter.

There is more light here.

The enemy is and will continue to fight even harder. In this season, I see the strategies plainly even as I feel them singe my heart, wincing as his lies- though they hold no truth- hurt. As he sees the King’s joy over new births and ministries revealed, he does two things:

He tells us that we need to be a part of everything or we have a place in nothing. Move your feet or lose your seat, he taunts. So we get greedy, trying to throw ourselves into every good thing, spreading ourselves thin because ‘if we don’t go to everything than they will think we are not in support of them’. This is the season of him trying to gain back territory with those he had categorized as ‘people pleasers’.

Don’t speak that over yourself, friend. You are not a people pleaser. It is not who you are. You are a Father pleaser and you are doing it well as you walk in His nature and fulfill His desires for you. We are not of this world. Our treasure and pleasing isn’t for this place. It’s for the incense in front of our Father. It’s for the glory that surrounds the throne. It’s to bring what is not here, here, and make this His home.

When we allow fear or what we think others are thinking to rule our decisions, spreading ourselves thin, we have less room to sow into the good things He has set aside to be sown in us.

Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh.

The root of the word wait here can also be translated as “to whirl” or “to be in labor/give birth”.

To wait for Yahweh is fruitful in itself.

To say, “I’m not going to listen to you anymore” when the enemy whispers how everyone is growing together without you is to wait.

To not compromise nor take short cuts to get the heck out of the season you are tired of walking through is to wait.

To figure out what is going on in your heart and your head when everything is swirly and you just need to sit down a second and be attentive to your guts is to wait.

To not run into everything when you know you are stretched thin and you also know the choice is hard and could conclude with your feeling a little left out at times is to wait.

You are doing sacred and holy things.

I know it’s hard. I know the echos of loneliness and the threats of missing out. But you aren’t slacking. You aren’t flailing. You are staying and you are waiting and you.

You

are

giving

birth.

Giving birth to treasures and good things that couldn’t come if you chose the noise. If you chose the back roads. If you chose to be busy. If you chose fear.

Sometimes it’s that simple.

Do you want to be busy or do you want to be fruitful?

Do you want a little bit of every thing buffet style or do you want the fullness of God when you choose to stick to the path He has called you to in this season?

To give our best selves as a living offering to the Lord means to be intentional and live a life of waiting on Him. Waiting doesn’t mean not walking. And it doesn’t mean sitting everything out. God’s plans for us isn’t the same shoe size across the board. He is attentive to the precise heart He connected with as He intimately wove us together in the secret place, and He is standing before us asking us to be the same. Not to fill our moments with every good thing. But to seek Him out in our hearts and ask Him where He wants us. Let Him make our plans.