kat“God help me make the most out of this season. I don’t want to live in complaint or wish away the winter. There are treasures to be found in this place that I don’t want to miss”
This week Houston was under a week-long cold front. Rain, fog, cloudy skies, and wet roads made for an intense winter week. I’m sure you heard at least one person complain about it. In fact, I even complained about it yesterday morning as I drove to Baker Ripley to get my taxes done, lol. Mind you, I was wearing a parka.
We love to complain about winter in winter, and we love to complain about summer in summer. I prefer winter. I love winter because of all its amenities:
- Hot chocolate.
- Christmas.
- The aesthetic of snow (though we rarely get any in Houston).
- Chestnuts roasting by the fire, literally, and the song.
- The feeling of sleeping under a warm colcha (meaning thick blanket, maybe only Latinos understand this feeling) in 40-degree weather.
No matter how much I love winter though, every time I go outside I can’t help but shudder in the cold and say, “Why is it so cold?!” I complain a little in my heart!
But without winter, none of the treasures or beauty we attribute with this season would be born. Indeed, there is beauty in every season.
It is the same with our lives.
Yesterday I read a text from my childhood bestie. She sent me a page from a devotional dated January 31st, which my friend digitally circled in red. At the bottom of the page, my friend also circled the excerpt you all read at the beginning of this post.
Then later yesterday, I attended my church’s Wednesday service, and the first words to come out of my pastora’s mouth were along the same lines. She said she’s been trying to change her perception about the seasons, whether she will choose to see it as a time she must endure or a joyous opportunity.
She realized once a season passes, it’s over, and a new season comes along. She continued, “Our time of faith is like a period of courtship and like a season. If you miss your time you cannot follow because your time has passed. Just like you can’t eat fruit once the ripe time passes. The gospel too has a right season. If we don’t follow at the right season, it becomes impossible after, that is when you have missed your time. Even though it may be hard you have to be sure to follow during your season, your time of faith. How do you know it’s your season? When you have heard the gospel! This is your season.”
When I hear similar words twice like that (about the seasons), I know it is God speaking to me. My childhood bestie once told me there are no such things as coincidences; I’ve held on to that ever since and find it to be true.
Do you struggle to tell time or predict the weather? Sometimes, right? However, there are times you can tell right away that it is going to rain! It is evident in the thunder you can hear from miles away and the clouds of the sky. Jesus said, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” *cue Harry Styles*
In the same way we fail to interpret when God is speaking to us and when a new time has come. We struggle to hear his voice. We all do.
But I can tell you, I have never heard God’s words or voice more clear in my life than now. In fact, before learning God’s words I couldn’t hear his voice at all. Now, I receive such strong thoughts (or inspirations) that I know are not just my thoughts or feelings. It is God conveying his heart and ideas to me. Now, I have absolute conviction that God is speaking to me and I to Him. My pastor once said something along the lines of, “God is always speaking to us, calling out to us hundreds and thousands of times throughout our day.” The only problem is, do we hear Him?
How do you know what you are hearing is God’s voice? Is it audible?
I can only speak for myself when I have never heard God’s voice audibly. God’s voice is in the soft whispers. He is in the howling of the wind. The pinching of my chest. The tugging of my heartstrings. He is in the sudden, crystal clear thought that makes me perk up like a lightbulb flashing on. Like taking a cold shower on a hot day, ah so refreshing. God’s voice is all of this and more.
Sometimes God speaks through people. It’s like when a random stranger comes up to you, and when they leave, you can’t help but ask yourself, “Was that real or imagined? Was that an angel?”
God can use anyone as his body to speak to you. God’s voice can be your mother’s loving words. Or your father’s stern warning. A line that sticks out to you from a book, a song, or a TV show. A well-meaning friend’s advice. (But always discern carefully, especially through prayer as Satan also speaks to us, whether directly or through other people.)
I am always searching for God, whether intentionally or not. One time I wrote a fiction story for a creative writing class I was taking at my university, and I wrote something along the lines of “Searching for a revelation.” My college professor critiqued it, perhaps with good intentions and within good reason.
He said, “Shouldn’t a revelation be something you realize, not something you search for? Shouldn’t it come to you out of nowhere? Isn’t that more organic?”
I pondered what he said. I thought about it for days. Because ever since I came to know Christ, I have lived my days searching for a revelation or realization about God, whether in my spirit, through my lived experiences, or the things revealed to me through nature, or in the soul.
So you see my dilemma here? I wondered, “By searching for realizations and revelations and coming to find them, am I realizing things correctly? Or am I forcing realizations when they’re not really there?”
Oof. That’s a tricky question.
Or was, that is, until one day, my pastor said something along the lines of: God and Jesus call out to you hundreds of times a day. Waiting for you to call them in return. When you call them, that is when you connect.
I realized that if you never seek, you will never find. If you never knock on the door of Jesus’ heart, he will never open it to you. If you never ask, you will never get an answer.
Searching for a realization or revelation is right. It doesn’t make your life realizations or conclusions any less real. And it is not inorganic.
Some days I realize things come out of nowhere; I was never searching for an answer or such a profound message from God yet I found it. And some days, I desperately search for even one word from God with my entire being until I hear it. I am moved and satisfied when I do because I know God knows my thoughts and hears my questions.
If you have never heard God’s voice and it is why you doubt: Call on the Lord’s name, even just once, and sincerely expect an answer.
People who never expect an answer, who think Jesus is a false being who will never speak to them, are blinded by ignorance. They will never know. It is as if what you are searching for is right in front of you, but you keep missing it.
They are, as Apostle Paul was, a persecutor of Christians who arrogantly and ferociously arrested, imprisoned, and killed the people of God. He thought he was doing so in the name of God during a time when believers of Jesus Christ (Christians) were a minority and believed to be a cult.
He was known by his Jewish name Saul and his second name was Paul. It was Roman, and after coming to Christ he became widely known by this name, Apostle Paul. Before he believed in Christ he was self-justified and believed his perception to be true. That is, until one day Jesus Christ stopped him on his path. Paul was on his way to arrest a group of Christians gathering in Damascus. Jesus appeared in spirit before Paul’s very eyes and said, “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?”
It was then Paul was blinded, and Jesus told him if he did everything he was instructed to and went to a man of God named Ananias (who would pray over him and teach him about Jesus), he would be cured.
Paul was cured of blindness, spiritual blindness. He accepted Jesus and realized so powerfully that he testified to the gentiles and wrote many letters to the early Christian churches-words inspired by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, which remain in the Bible. He preached in many places, evangelizing immense crowds, and was responsible for powerfully spreading New Testament history.
Christianity is what it is today because of Apostle Paul.
What is most shocking to me about Apostle Paul’s story is not so much his conversion from complete ignorance to absolute belief in Jesus but the fact that Jesus forgave Apostle Paul’s sins, restored him through God’s words and used him so powerfully. If Jesus could forgive and call Apostle Paul, whose sin was so great, indeed there is hope for all of us.
I pray to be used by God to fulfill His will as Apostle Paul did. If Apostle Paul could accomplish that much in his time, how much more can we do today? How much more we will surely fulfill because we are standing on the foundation of God’s history.
We have access to technology, can openly teach others about God, and are rich people, both physically and spiritually.
This is the season we are in. This is our season.
How do you know it’s your season? Is it because everything is going right in your life? No, it is as my pastor said, when God’s words have come to you that is your season. When the kingdom of Heaven has come near to you.
So whatever season you are in personally, do not be discouraged. Instead, let’s realize God’s timing. His season has arrived. Will you recognize it?
God is speaking to you right now. He is choosing you and calling you because he loves you.
It is your season. Will you make the most of this season and find the treasures, or will you miss it? Will you search for God, or will you remain blind?
