5 Growth Steps While in a Hard Season

“Preach! Be ready in season and out of season…”

If I linger on the words ‘out of season’ too long, I find a connection with it that is frightening. I am not sure that becoming out of season is something you arrive at with intention, I think it’s a slow pace in an unintended direction. It is a hard thing to admit you are in.  

I would imagine I am not the only one who feels a surprising connection with this uncomfortable statement. 

2 Timothy 4:2-5 

Paul encourages us to live for the ‘they’. Reading through his letters, he is relentless in his intentional definition of ‘YOU’ and difference of ‘THEY’. He has a strong knowledge of the pulse and direction of the world that fuels his passion to change it and inspires others to feel responsible for it. 

AS HE TEACHES HE IS CONSTANTLY REPEATING…. 

‘THEY will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful…’  

‘YOU, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them…’

‘THEY will not endure sound doctrine; but will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…’  

‘But YOU, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry…’

Persistence. 

Without this cadence of encouraging separation of world and self, we will have very little motivation with a body that is achy and a soul that is tired. The phrase ‘out of season’ strikes a chord in this moment of in-between in my life. In-between intimacy in ministry roles, in-between friendship that go beyond familiar, in-between rest, in-between discovering my place.

OUT OF SEASON.

This uncomfortable phrase is also a charge of persistence. A reminder that seasons change. A truth that moves us beyond our circumstance of now and forces our mindset into a passion for ‘them’. For a world that is needy and right at our feet waiting for relief. 

5 Things I Am Asking God For In This Season:

1. A strong connection with the place that He has me. 

2. A deep rooted gratefulness for what He has already done and all that is yet to come. 

3. Attentiveness for the world of hurt around me, to learn well and love well. 

4. To be a good friend. 

5. Listen more than I speak. 

There is an awakening to self and others when I pause to first hear then process.  

No matter the season we get a presence of a holy God who is worthy of our fight to be love to a world that is broken, to bring the truth of Christ to a darkness that is all consuming, and to live a life in pursuit of sharing light both in and out of season. 

Because of Love,

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