A New Season

This particular blog does not go along with today's reading; I just felt like I needed to share this:

Over the course of the last year, our church body has been in a building project, preparing a place for the harvest. It was September 7th, 2008, the day I moved to Russell Springs. Just a few years before, I was presented with an opportunity to come earlier, but I didn’t take the chance. Just a few months after I arrived in 2008, our pastor cast the vision of a new facility, and we launched into this building project. After the announcement was made, I walked out into the parking lot, and I asked the Lord, “Of all the times I could have moved here, why now?” The Holy Spirit answered, “It’s a building season.”

Now, being here for almost two years, I can honestly say it has indeed been the most significant building season of my life. I have not ever experienced this much spiritual growth in such a short time span. However, this spiritual building season has, without a shadow of a doubt, been the most difficult, painful, and even loneliest season of my life. It has seemed all my plans and hopes I had for my future vanished right before my eyes. Everything I had worked for---desired---all faded away. If that’s not an empty feeling, I don’t know what is. I began to look at my life and would feel worthless and like a true failure. Depression and loneliness would be the python that would slowly slither its way around me, squeezing the breath and life out of me, stealing my joy. I would even question God, “I’ve tried to make all the right decisions, to get closer to you, but why does it feel like I made all the wrong decisions?” I felt so defeated I would even question my move here. But, as I called, the Holy Spirit answered, “You're still here, and I’m still with you!”

I would once again remember that this is a building season and would ponder on the building project. I realized that it has taken a long time for that building to go up. It has taken hard work---blood, sweat, and tears. It has even been a painful, frustrating process for a lot of people involved. Though it has taken quite a bit of time for that building to go up, soon it will come into completion! Philippians 1:6 states, “Be confident, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it!”

More and more, I’m learning patience. Patience isn’t just the ability to wait.  It’s the ability to keep a good attitude while you do it. Some things may have gone wrong in your life and not like you’ve hoped. One thing I have learned from the past is what not to be in the future! So, let me remind you.  You are still here, still running the race, and He is still with you. When He is with you, your hope is alive, your dream is alive, and in you, He is alive!

As our new facility is in the final stages of the building process, I believe that we are entering into a new season and a new day! The glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former house. The latter rain of His presence will be greater than the former rain! And, any dry season we have experienced on a personal level, or even a corporate level, is coming to an end! Your best days and blessed days are ahead! It’s a new season, it’s a new day, and it’s coming your way!