Barren Fields and Fruitful Vines

At the risk of sounding like I'm not looking forward to transplanting to beautiful Denver at the beginning of June and starting a job I can't wait to do, I have formulated a canned response to: "Are you so excited!?" I am so excited and I am also so, so sad.

The Lord does give and does take away, but he doesn't always do it in that order. Sometimes he takes away and then he gives, and oh how he has given in the past season.

He has given so well and so plentifully that I cannot help but mourn what I will lose by stepping into other good things. As I navigated making this decision, walking through it with several pastors, elders, and friends from my church, it seemed the more Denver was looking like a probability, the more I longed for what I had already here. The morning I got on the plane to Colorado with one of my best friends for a scouting trip, I was certain I would leave my time there deciding to stay in Texas.

But when we got on the plane after our trip, it was clear to both of us: Denver would become my home sometime soon.

It felt like both a generous gift and a strange gift. The timing felt (and still feels) awkward and uncomfortable. The community of people I have around me currently is the richest I've experienced yet at my church; the home in which I live is not without its struggles, but I love it deeply; a man who captures more of my affections every day in every way snuck quietly and surprisingly into my life; nothing about this timing makes it feel good to exit this place.

And yet there is more surety in me about what the Holy Spirit is doing and where he is taking me than I can remember.

. . .

This is just a testimony of sorts, it's not a formula. I'm not saying, "Let go and let God," or "Stop trying to control life and everything you ever desired will happen for you." Those are unhelpful statements at best and terrible theology at worst. What I am saying, though, is I came into 2015 with my palms up and a blank slate. I thought I made a wreck of some things in the previous year, but God knew those things weren't wreckage, they were seeds, and their time hadn't yet come.

James 5:7-8 says, "See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand."

I thought I was wasting away last year. Dormant. Standing there, waiting, and for what? I didn't even know what I was waiting for. But just as I prepare my heart in this day, surrounded by rich bounty, God has been preparing my heart for the past two years, in a fallow field I thought was wasting away. The ground produces best when it is allowed to rest, to sit unused, empty, tilled, waiting for the right time.

Is now the right time? I don't know. I can't possibly know, and I have learned that all the certainty in the world doesn't mean we always get what we want. But I have also learned to trust that barrenness doesn't mean uselessness.