Now.

In this life, every season has an ending. Just as we don't stay helpless newborns forever, there comes a day when you realize (or your parents realize) that you're getting too big to be carried. The days of being fed by others pass, and in time we grow and learn how to feed ourselves, how to make our own decisions, how to live. And even though we may sometimes look back at those special seasons of our lives where everything seemed great and want to go back to those carefree summer days in fourth grade catching fireflies in the backyard, that season has ended. A new one is here. And just ahead, peeking through the trees over the crest of this next hill, another season will come. And we don't always know what comes next. For me, I seldom do, and even when I have a glimpse of what lies ahead, I never, ever, know exactly how it is to unfold, and when it does, I realize that that little glimpse I had was just one very small part out of all God was doing.

But this is what has been impressed like a blazing brand upon my heart and mind lately: Now. Yesterday's seasons have passed, and God knows exactly how their memories and lessons will play into what is to come. Tomorrow is not yet here, but rests in the faithful hands of the very Author of time. But every moment, this is what lies before me: Now. I can't change the past or the future, but I am given a choice in the now, right here. Will I trust my God, or look to my own strength? Will I focus on those around me, who may only be nearby for a short amount of time, or on myself, whom I'll be stuck with for my entire life? Will I seek their good, or my own? Will I be bold when the moment calls for it, or will I cower? Will I dare to trust my God?

As with every season, this moment in my life is coming to an end--rapidly! I have just over three weeks left on this campus...three. Three short weeks. And then I venture into yet another adventure-filled season which I have no idea what exactly it may look like. God's leading me back home, leading me to transfer colleges and embark on a brand new adventure in regards to...well, pretty much everything. Life as I know it is once again changing. 

And it means a lot of painful goodbyes. For that, I'm truly grateful, because it's proof that God has blessed me so richly by surrounding me with so many people that I love dearly in Him and who have impacted and enriched my life in ways they may never know. Goodbyes for me are always intensely bittersweet, because I can't seem to help but deeply love the people God puts in my path. Even the ones my heart aches and agonizes over because they are so far from Him...in fact, those people are sometimes the hardest to say goodbye to, because some part of me they may never fully see expressed is inwardly crying out on their behalf, yearning for them to behold the Living God. 

But somehow, all these dreaded, agonizing farewells have come to hold a very special place in my heart. They are a token of God's goodness, and a reminder that even in my most painful moments, He is faithful to sustain and His joy remains unquenched. They may be moments I'd rather live without (I hate goodbyes!), but they are moments I would have never had unless God had brought me to them, unless He had never put people in my life whom I could care this deeply for. 

Still it is before me: Now. I have right now. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow awaits, but unless my gaze is set on Christ's face and ready for what He has to say and do in the right now, that now will pass away before I had the chance to live it. When my eyes are straining ahead to try to figure out steps I haven't yet gotten to, they fail to see the now that lies between me and that future ahead. It is now I am responsible for. But praise God, I do not have to bear that responsibility alone. My life is mine to yield to Him. Now. Right now, in this moment.

So don't take the now for granted. Pull your thoughts from your to-do list and rest in His faithfulness, in the right now. He sees the future. He knows. He's got it. Quit worrying and trying to get there on your own steam and in your own ways, and let the One who laid this path at your feet lead you from the now to the tomorrow. 

Whatever season you find yourself in right now, don't take it for granted. Don't let now slip by without you getting to taste the beauty of living it with the One who brought you to it. Don't let it fade into the yesterdays by treating it as though it were gone already. Treasure it. Treasure Him. Seek Him. Follow hard.

Rak khazak!

When Writing Becomes an Act of Worship

Two and a half years ago, God asked me to give up something. At the time, I wasn't sure if He meant put it on hold for a while, or actually give it up forever. All I knew was that He was asking me to trust Him and to entrust what had become one of the defining aspects of my life into His hands. This exchange took place early on in the summer of 2010, during my time at Ellerslie LeadershipTraining. I had come to Ellerslie with as clear of an idea for what my future held as I'd had up to that point, with several specific things God had highlighted that I felt He was calling me in. Among those things was writing. And it was special to me. 

See, a few years before that was when, through one comment from my Dad, I first began to realize I had any talent for writing at all. During the remainder of my time in high school, I began to branch out and write more than just school assignments and journal entries. I embarked on writing stories, and about a year before Ellerslie came around, I had written the first draft of a book meant to call my generation to rise up and live out what we say we believe. I felt strongly that God had led me to write it, and reasoned that therefore I was supposed to pursue self-publishing it once I had opportunity, which wasn't likely to happen before my time at Ellerslie was over. In addition to this completed draft, I had several stories in-progress I had been working on.

But then, when I least expected it, God asked me to give it all up. He wanted my gaze on Him, and though at the time I could not understand why He was asking this of me, I knew I needed to trust Him. The summer of 2020 was life-changing for me in more ways than I can probably come close to describing, but in the area of writing it was also pivotal. What I could not see then, when a large part of my identity was wrapped up in "what I could do for God," was that surrender was to be the avenue to something greater than I'd ever dreamed. God was drawing me to a life of worship--of adoration and communion with Him, not just part-time, but constantly. 

Surrender is not a one-time event. It means a constant, repeated act of choosing to yield to another's will. The beauty of true surrender to Christ lies in its continuation and the way God uses it for His glory. 

For me, I went through a season that summer where I literally could not write. It wasn't that I felt I shouldn't; it was that I tried over and over again, and found my attempts clumsy and inadequate. Part of it was that I was encountering things I had no words for, no way to adequately describe. In fact, that was probably a larger part of it than I realized at the time. But the reality, for me, was that for a time my ability was stripped away from me. And during that time, rather than collapsing into hopelessness, I found myself further enraptured by my God, by who He is and what He was doing in and through and around me, and lost sight of me and my own abilities. I became more satisfied in Christ than I had ever been before, and found that He truly was enough, even if everything else in my life was taken away. 

Toward the end of the summer, God surprised me by giving it back. We had an "assignment" of sorts, to write or compose something, some sort of remembrance, of what we had seen God doing during our eleven weeks of Basic Training. And as I sorted through the many things that had taken place in my own soul and those around me during that ridiculously short amount of time (for it seemed like so much longer, considering all that happened), inspiration struck. I found myself writing in a way I never had before, not just with the way I was trying to use an analogy to describe something, but with the sense of worship that accompanied it.

I had prayed during the writing process of that first-draft book I finished the year before, but by now something had changed within my soul. It wasn't just that I enjoyed writing more now that I had walked through a season without it. Something had changed, and suddenly writing became an act of worship. 

Two and a half years later, I am still in the process of discovering what it means for writing to be a form of worship. See, worship isn't just singing songs on a Sunday morning. It's more than a feeling that fades with the situation. Worship is a spiritual posture of surrender and trust and reliance and sweet fellowship with the God who created us to know Him. And it's meant to characterize every aspect of our day-to-day lives. If those in heaven are constantly worshiping the Lord (see Revelation 4:8-11), then "on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10) looks the same, doesn't it? "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 11:36-12:1). It's the beautiful, indescribable, joyous surrender and communion with our Creator that we were designed for. 

And recently, quite possibly more than ever before in my life, I have been experiencing times spent writing that are indeed simultaneously times of worship. I'm no longer writing for myself, out of simply a desire to create a story. It's not about trying to write something that will merely entertain people anymore. During a recent car ride on the way home from visiting relatives up North, I typed out just under two-and-a-half pages (which may just turn into a later blog post) about how I now perceive writing and why I write. 

But in the end, it's not about the writing or even what it produces. It's not even about the impact or effect it could have on others. Ultimately, it's about the worship, because that is what I was created for. Not stringing groups of words together on paper so that they make sense or prove some point. Not eloquence or lack thereof. Worship. 

Because we were created to live and thrive in a constant state of worship, of prayer, of communion with God. So "worship" may look different at different times. One moment, it may be singing to the Lord, and the next, it may look like loving the person next to you the way that God loves them. Sometimes it looks like picking up trash, and sometimes it looks like having a conversation with a close friend or a complete stranger. Sometimes it looks like getting alone with God, and sometimes it looks like sharing the Gospel. Sometimes it means painful sacrifice, and sometimes it means crying tears of astonishment when you see what God is doing or has done. Sometimes it looks like being completely still and silent and reflecting on God, or waiting on Him, listening. Simply put, worship means living in the center of God's will, every moment. Seeking Him, seeing Him, knowing Him more with each passing day. Sometimes, it even looks like sleeping--peacefully resting in His promises while you lose consciousness for a time...

And sometimes, it looks like writing.

. . .