As the dead leaves fall.

When everything is dying around me I am reminded that the revival of Spring will come again.

Last night during a time of intimate worship during Vespers I repented for placing my hope and joy in my circumstances. These past two months have been harder than I ever thought. I need not tell you the things that have been causing me hardship-but I will instead channel these negative cirumstances into encouragement and joy- and share with you the lesson that God has been teaching me instead.

Ever since the Plbc retreat in September God has challenged me to rejoice in my sufferings. When the speaker talked about the difference between rejoicing in them and just grinning and bearing them- I came to the realization that grinning and bearing in my times of struggle was exactly what I had been doing.

So I thought about how I could get to that point where I could be overflowing with joy even when everything around me was falling apart..Was it simply a matter of a heart change? A constant self reminder that God worked for the good in all things?

I tried and tried in the past two months to get to that point and I somewhat succeeded..but really I was still desperate for a voice of direction from God. Well it came yesterday. After seeking and seeking ..building patience and an passionate desire to hear from him..he showed me simply that my joy had been placed in the hope that my circumstances would get better- it had been placed in the hope that he would intervene and fix everything just the way I thought he would. When the circumstances were good I was good, when they werent, I just felt crappy all the time.

What about finding my joy simply in him? In who he was? In his faithful promises to me?

Focusing on him, declaring his promises, and placing my joy simply in who He is during these hard times is the answer! As soon as my eyes are removed from my circumstances and put onto him I am able to respond with Joyful worship!

I got a picture of a tree in fall with its leaves dying and falling to ground during worship last night. I realized that my life looks like that right now- everything around me is dying and falling to ground. But then I saw that same tree budding with life- with new leaves and fruit, and I was reminded that the Spring of Healing is yet to come -maybe not the way I think it will- but God will not dissapoint.

The Revival of Spring will come again, but in this period of fall I will find my joy in him and nothing else.

Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer (so I will not stumble), he enables me to go on the heights. (so I can walk up the steep mountains).

Tess