Winter Is Worth Enduring

Winter is cold and hard. 

Especially here in northeast Ohio. We’ve seen double digit negative degrees over the past few weeks. That’s just dumb cold. Feels like summer was a lifetime ago, but we know spring is just around the corner. Sometimes seasons just seem to fade from one to the other and you just move from one to the next. I never imagined I would be telling you what I am about to tell you. Even just 3 months ago I would have laughed if you told me this would happen. But first, I’m not going to sit here and pretend everyone has kept up with what’s happening in my life. You are more than welcome to check out my last few posts to get up to speed on what I’m about to tell you.

So we’ve been waiting in, spiritually, a winter season. We’ve been present in the waiting. We’ve been still in the waiting. We slowed down. We rested in Him. And we looked for Him in the waiting. Best part is we didn’t have to look very hard. He showed up quickly and in a huge way. He put us in a place that gave us community, love, and a place where we could find restoration. We saw Him and we discovered the Holy Spirit in a way we never imagined possible. But isn’t the one of the coolest things about God? His ways are just so far beyond what we could ever imagine. 

I’m going to pull a line from my last blog, because well I wrote it, and I like it! Joseph had to wait many years and many physical setbacks before becoming the leader God promised he would be. And like I’ve told you, I don’t like waiting for anything. I’ve never been one to sit back and weigh stuff properly, I am definitely a “jump out of the boat and see what happens” Peter-type of person. I want to act now,  and be the leader God designed me to be right now without going through any sort of waiting or setbacks. But God has been teaching me the same thing over the last 6 months that we find Him teaching Joseph many, many years ago. But first let’s get this part out in the open. No, I’m not sitting here trying to compare Joseph’s physical anguish of being sold into slavery and thrown in prison to my situation. I’ve never been sold into slavery by my siblings (although I’m sure there were many times where that crossed their minds growing up), and no I’ve never been thrown into prison because of a false accusation. Simply I resonate with some of the aspect of what Joesph learned through everything he went through.

If you aren’t familiar with Joseph’s story you should check it out over in the book of Genesis chapters 37-50. It’s a pretty exciting story once you know the end. I know the middle part wasn’t very exciting for Joseph because like I said, he had to go through many physical setback to get to where God was leading. But TL;DR (too long; didn’t read for all you non-hip to cool lingo folks), Joseph was basically the favorite of many sons and he knew it and would often rub it in his brothers faces. One day he goes too far and tells his brothers he had a dream that they’re all going to bow down to him. This was the final straw, so they sell him into slavery and tell their dad, Jacob, that he was murdered by animals. Joseph is sold into slavery, later is falsely accused of rape, and gets thrown in jail. While in jail he meets some people, they have dreams, and Joseph interprets the dreams correctly. The Pharaoh has a dream and Joseph interprets it correctly. Joseph is then made second in command of Egypt. God show Joseph a dream that there will be a 7 year famine to Joseph starts preparation for that, and his brothers show up for help not knowing it was Joseph they were talking to. Joesphs identity is then revealed to his remorseful bothers and his father and he takes care of them.

Joseph’s story and setbacks took place over many years. He went through being sold to slavery, being thrown in prison, and then becoming second in command of Egypt, but it took YEARS! He had to wait YEARS for God to reveal WHY all this stuff had been allowed to happened to him. He had to wait YEARS in order to get to the place where God could reveal to Him His plan. He had to wait YEARS for God to use all that bad stuff to position Joseph in the place where he could be used by God in a mighty way. In such a mighty way that would never have been possible if Joseph had not of gone through his winter.

For me, my winter has been 7 months. And it has been a cold, frustrating but also at times incredible winter. To get us from where we are spiritually at the end of July to where we are currently. Like I mentioned in my last blog it’s been a season of total surrender. The type of surrender I had never known nor allowed. Surrendering ourselves to let God speak, and move in our lives. Which meant actually giving Him control over every aspect, including finances WHICH WAS THE HARDEST THING, seriously there were many tears over this. But it’s been 6 months of allowing God to move in our lives and through all the junk that has happened in our lives, and positioning us in such a place (spiritually, emotionally, and physically) that He could move in a mighty way. In such a mighty way that this would have never been possible if we had not of gone through all the hard things we’ve been through. It wouldn’t have been possible if we had not of made the decision of total surrender.

So we find ourselves at the end of this winter season of waiting, and we can actually see spring around the corner. How weird it is to watch a season come to an end and much anticipated one taking off.  And, we find ourselves moving. Yes, again. And we find ourselves moving to place that, like I said earlier even just 3 months ago I would have laughed and said no way. But I have been offered and accepted the worship pastor position at a church just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yes you read that right. We are moving out west to New Mexico. This was not an easy process to surrender ourselves to the possibility of moving away from the east coast, but it was an easy decision to agree to this position because we knew pretty early on this was where God was leading us. It has an amazing thing waiting on Him to speak, and to move. And early on we found refuge in the words that Moses spoke to the Egyptians when they were fearful of their circumstance. He spoke in Exodus 14