Hey friends!
It’s been a while!
2020 sure went off with a bang didn’t it?! A new year and a new decade!
We claim it as a new season and with new hope, we reach out for more than just the mundane.
The expectation that there is more.
And there is.
But it isn’t always wrapped up in the nice present want it to be.
Comfort is a killer.
It’s my favourite thing ever though.
Since I can remember, my Mum was so beautiful at making every where we went feel like home. Whether it was a caravan park or an Easter camp, we were surrounded by home.
I absolutely do the same for my babies now (my teenager is still so obsessed with his “Thomas The Tank Engine” pillow that he took it on year 8 camp.)
I love, love, love being with people, but I also love home, the couch, a blanket, Netflix, silence.
It’s a weird tension, but being comfortable is dangerous. It’s easy.
The path of least resistance.
I feel like this year we’ve been playing a game of tug of war with God for our comfort. It’s like a cross road where God is teaching me to thrive in the undone, the unresolved, the uncomfortable. Our little Bella has been unwell and had pain in her tummy for almost 3 months.
3 months of no one sleeping.
3 months of doctors and X-rays and blood tests and ultrasounds and medicine.
3 months of tension.
At the beginning I remember saying things like :
“ once this is over, I’ll begin this...”
“ As soon as Bella is better and everything is normal, I’ll work hard towards that...”
Everything was on hold until comfort was restored and we could collect ourselves and press on.
Except, it still hasn’t.
But God has.
I have learned so much in the stretch. To depend on and live in the space of needing God all. the. time.
I remember some beautiful Pastors praying over us that Jas and I had been like rubber bands and we had been stretched in the last few years, way beyond what the rubber band was made for, but it didn’t break. It expanded. It became larger. And honestly, I’ve felt that be true more now than ever before.
I can feel it enlarging us. Growing us. Pushing our borders out.
Gosh it’s uncomfortable. Unnatural.
But I’m thankful.
Sometimes when we ask God for the next season and to grow us, we don’t realise it costs us. It costs us what the world places value on.
When we pray that audacious prayer, we begin to live in counter- cultural currency (that was a lot of c’s). Our currency becomes the things of Heaven: character, integrity, uninhibited love, forgiveness- instead of the worlds currency: self importance, status, money, accumulating, experiences, comfort, consumerism.
When we speak the language of Heaven and value what God values over our own comfort- we can’t stay the same. It flips the world and it’s priorities on its head and leaves us with the raw truth that we are not long here. That we get one shot at this life and we need to get the purpose right.
The song “New Wine” by Hillsong and Brookey hasn’t left my lips. God has brought it back to my heart over and over in the last few months.
“In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine.”
The crushing and the pressing are necessary for the new wine. Otherwise it just sits there as grapes and doesn’t do anything (although frozen grapes are amazing, try it!).
The crushing and the pressing activate it’s purpose.
Learn to love the pressing because that’s where the real change happens.
For now, the stretching is met with tired eyes and full hearts. It’s a weird tension, but it’s necessary for the new wine.
Don’t run from whatever is holding you back. Instead of seeing the hardship as keeping you down, try and see it as stretching you out-
A loving God growing you and challenging you to take on the next season. It might not look how you want it to, but press in anyway.
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”
James 1:2-4 MSG
A loving God growing you and challenging you to take on the next season. It might not look how you want it to, but press in anyway.
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”
James 1:2-4 MSG
It’s quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it’s not the sort of comfort they supply…
-C.S. Lewis
Press in my darlings, let’s get uncomfy together and do it cheering each other on.
I love you xx
Ps Totally pray for Bella, little ducky.
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