Hey Lovelies,
How are you and hope you are well. Well, well. I didn’t think I’d be gone so long. I’ve been contemplating what to do with this blog. I’m at a place where I’m not sure whether to keep writing it or to simply morph this into something more …… serious. Something that didn’t simply feel like a hobby. Anyway, more on that later.
How has your year been? Mine has been…. interesting, for lack of a better word to describe it.
I came into this year with some goals and plans I wanted to achieve but, I have to say, life sorta just threw all of that up, tore the list and trashed it. It was the kind of “trashing” that didn’t even allow you to grasp at the shreds of some of the goals and attempt to achieve them- at least not without copious amounts of insane discipline that I, honestly, don’t have right now.
However though, as this year unfolded, I got to a point where I discovered that I was STUCK. I remember wanting to do a post about it called “A place called stuck”. Early this year, I arrived at the gates of a place called stuck. This happened on a Sunday morning. I had not attended physical service as I meant to attend a virtual one in the evening and as I went about chores at home, I suddenly found myself stuck, in my head. I’ve read people talk about “getting stuck” but I didn’t and never got it. That day, I did. I got it. I cannot explain what happened but I was in a place, in my head where I was like “how did I get here? What am I doing here?”. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t ask myself the questions I needed to ask myself to unravel myself; to untie the knot that had formed in my mind and brain and that wouldn’t let me think forward. I started hyperventilating and frantically looked through my phone for the contact of a therapist I had been speaking to. I felt, in that moment, like I needed to speak to someone. Someone with the capacity to ask me the right questions to push me out of that place of stuck. Like a person who had swallowed a piece of bone whilst eating egusi and fufu and needed another to pound on their backs to help force the bone out of their mouths. That kind of stuck.
Phew. That place launched me into a new season of my life. A season of change. A season I’d tried to pray away, to fast away, to endure away, to “die to self” away- as a good Christian. I’d tried to avoid this season, I’d come to it several times and let myself be talked out of it but, I came to it and, I believe, I had all the pointers, leadings and promptings from God saying “Now is the time. You must face this to get to the other side of where I’m taking you. You can no longer limp like this and you cannot limp into the assignment I’m sending you to. I need you healed and whole for your next level. Enough is Enough”.
So, with a lot of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of what lay ahead of me, with very little courage, but with total faith in God, I walked into the season. Now in this season, I see God every step of the way. I’m leaning on and into Him for everything- I need Him like I need my next breath.
In this season, I’ve learned to trust God so much more. I’ve learned to be still and to wait. I’ve learned to move with the undulating ways of the Holy Spirit, moving how He moves me to and being sensitive. This season has also helped me recollect and recognise all of the many seasons I didn’t steward well. I’ve been here before. I’ve been here not once or twice. At a point in my life, a crossroad, where there was change happening or cooking. The end product of this process of change was to birth a preferred/desired/favourable outcome which was to launch me into destiny. It was a door set before me. And as with divine doors when they are presented, there would be adversaries (“For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”- 1 Corinthians 16:9 KJV) -
temptations here and there, in different forms and guises. In hindsight, I would give in to a temptation here and sin there. And in doing that, the process of birthing that desired outcome would be terminated. An abortion would happen. The notable outcome I had hoped for would become a minor event that launched a season of pain……
I didn't quite realise that this was what was happening but, as time has gone on, as I've listened to my teachers, read books by fathers of faith, gotten discipled and as I've now been able to look at my own life and to draw the connecting lines in certain happenstances, I have now come to the understanding that certain seasons of our lives are very sensitive and that the way to ride them, to get the best of them, is to adopt a posture of worship and waiting on God. One must eschew sin in all its guises- those seasons are normally seasons where the enemy is hyper vigilant around us, looking for opportunities to capture us, to ensnare us; he wants that impending joyful season to be changed to a season of pain. He wants it to be an abortion for us. So he tempts us hard and ever so subtly.
He tempts us with the sins in our lives that used to easily beset us. What sins did our flesh love the most when it ruled us? Those kinds. Anger. Offence. Lust. Vices. Addictions of all kinds. Gossip etc.
And if one gave in to the temptation, the season could be aborted and they would face a repeat of seasons- the repeat of which may come many years down the line. They face a Retrogression. A cycle of repeated failures. A stagnation. A derailment.
These changing and waiting seasons require heightened spiritual sensitivity. One must adopt a posture that enables them ride it out. In our strength, our “independent thinking and planning”, we may be unable to ride it out easily or successfully because it is often a daunting season. We cannot see what is ahead, but we can choose to depend on the one who is All Knowing and who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46: 9-11), the One who can lead us aright because He knows exactly where we ought to be and ought to go. We can choose to submit totally to Him, praying through every single thing we face, every decision we have to make, every difficulty we face, casting all our cares upon Him. We must eschew sin. In these seasons, we are often clear headed and know that we’ve come into a season that is about to launch us into destiny. We are clearheaded enough to know right from wrong, and, indeed, to be on our way to choosing right. Depending on the amount of personal discipline we possess, the amount of personal integrity we have and the strength of our personal Will power, when faced with challenges that seem to tempt us to make foolish mistakes (that, sometimes unbeknownst to us when we are going through these times, cause our seasons to be abruptly aborted, that cause the expected fruitful outcome of this season we are in to turn unfruitful & sorrowful) we may be able to shun those temptations and focus on riding through those seasons. But the world is spiritual. We are not alone. There are forces working, day and night, to ensure that we don’t fulfil the purpose for which we are here on earth. So whilst we are exercising this “personal will power”, without the leading, covering and guidance of God, without the submission to God’s perfect Will and praying His promises over our lives and that season, without standing on His Word and being sensitive to how He leads us, it is very likely that we may have an aborted season. Which is the reason a lot of people face stagnations, derailments, retrogression etc and think it’s just bad luck. Or village people. It might be village people (because there is the place of faulty foundations that are militating against people’s lives) but more importantly, it’s about stewarding the seasons of our lives with spiritual intelligence so that the effects of the “village people” and all the wiles of the devil and his cohorts in our lives is null, void and of no effect and we go through these seasons victoriously, able to declare, like David, that “By you, Oh Lord, we have leaped over walls and we have run through troops!”- Psalm 18:29. We have overcome every plan of the enemy and have emerged victorious! Hallelujah!!
What season are you currently in? Have you been been diagnosed with a disease and are standing on God’s word to heal you? Are you waiting on the fruit of the womb? Have you been facing severe stagnation in certain areas? Are you going through a divorce? Are you struggling through an addiction? Are you in a painful marriage that God has given you a promise about so you are waiting to see the marriage become beautiful? Are you preparing for an examination that should launch you into destiny? Are you waiting for a decision that determines how you move forward in life? Are you waiting to meet your life partner? Are you going through a heartbreak? Do you realise you are in a defining season of your life and destiny?
How have you been stewarding this season of your life? Has anything I’ve written up there 👆🏾 resonated with you?
Please leave me a comment if it has and share how you’ve been stewarding your season.
As always,
Love and Light,
Judith.
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