When Life Looks and Feels Mundane - Brown and Bare - There Just May Be Life Within

 

I mentioned in my previous post how March can get a bad rap known to be...  Brown.  Drab.  Mud. Bare. 

Yes, it is all true and in this season, we long for warmth and color.

Let's continue on this journey to see what is within and the possibilities that lie within the soil and trees. I'm continuing to invite you to look beyond and maybe if you think of the tree for who and what it is - it just may shift your thoughts about this season of not yet - the in between of winter and the warm spring air.

You see, sometimes I find it quite real and true of myself and relate with the bare, brown, and mundane landscape of the March season. 

What you see across the landscape is the brown and bareness of the trees, as they stand in the mundane, common, and with vulnerability.  The trees and ground are void of the color of the sharp green grass, the yellow daffodils, the green that fills the branches of the trees, the various colors of the flowers that will eventually shoot forth and grace us with their beauty.

But let's stop for a moment and pause.  What you see of the tree and the ground is really what creates the space for all that beauty.  As the tree stands, stripped and bare of visible color and life, it stands vulnerable with life within.

I remember vividly a long season that I passed through the typical four seasons and stayed in the one that found me bare and void of visible productivity.  As I was taking a walk one afternoon and the sun was gracing the brown and the bare trees, the thought flashed through my mind - 'it's beautiful.'

Wait.  What?  Brown and bare = beautiful; no way!

Life is more than the fruit, the leaves, and the color.  Life is really what is within.  For the fruit, the leaves, and the color only happen as a result of what is within.  If the tree is dead within, no visible life will happen without or at least not for very long and most certainly won't withstand a wind storm.

This spoke to me and I saw the bare and brown of the landscape as beautiful in its own way for it truly holds the truest of life.

I, too, find myself in seasons and times that leave me stripped and bare.  But like the tree as it puts its roots down, resting and replenishing itself for the coming spring and summer's growth; I too, am called to put my roots down in Jesus, learning more of who He is.

He is Life and wants me to know Him as the Abundant Life.

Life within matters more than visible life without.  As the sun's rays warm the earth we see the stirrings of that life come to the surface.

The maple trees are tapped as the sun's warming rays stir the life within.  Sap is turned into syrup which we enjoy on our pancakes.  Grass starts to turn green.  The trees take on the hue of the emerging colour of leaves.  The new shoots of green that burst forth as spring daffodils, forsythia, lilacs, snowdrops and more start to color the landscape is invigorating.

In the mundane, the normal, the bareness creates a space to appreciate all this emerging life that laid silent within the earth and trees. 

To know color and the beauty of flowers we must know the season of rest and life within.  If there was always production, always a giving, when would we and nature ever rest and replenish?

So, as the white winter gives way to muddy March and the cold winds that still blow - stay.  Stay and remember the season of growth cannot be hurried and there is something right now that grows us, within, if we train our eyes to see life.  

Maybe God is inviting you to sit in this season of bare, mundane, and vulnerability to learn more of who are in Him without any external validation.

Maybe He is inviting you to understand the life within that is stirring, unseen but oh so alive, just waiting for the warmth of spring to stir it to something more - the birthing of life without.

The Origin of Life

 

Life.  To be alive, breathing, spirit, you, living is to have life.

Genesis 2:7 says, Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 1:20 tells us that God created living creatures to swarm in the waters.

Genesis 1:30 says, and to everything that moves on the each which has life, I have given.

Life began at the word of God.  Life started at the mere spoken words that echo through time in the living of the creatures that God created.

But for man, life began when God stooped over and breathed into man His own breath of life and man's chest heaved with the first intake of God's breath.

When Satan slithered into the garden, lying on a branch of a tree and hissed the words to Eve to look at the fruit; He was after God.  Satan knew if he could get Eve to doubt God's goodness and take from the one tree that God said, "No", that the knowledge of evil would kill and destroy life in its purest form, God's breath.  The end result would be in expired breath, death.

But God didn't let us in this state without a way, a way back to life.  That very day He promised a Saviour, a Redeemer, One who would come and save the world; to give life by giving His life.

Although death has entered our world and we now know pain, suffering, and death; God wants to continue to breathe life into our souls.  Among this brokenness we can choose life and Jesus came to give us life and to give it abundantly. John 10:10

Life continues to be found in Jesus.  Life is found as we sit at His feet and inhale His grace, exhaling our expectations.  It's found as we inhale His forgiveness and release, exhaling our mistakes and choosing repentance.  It's found in the letting go and choosing to rest in His provision, His being enough.

Literally, life is found between the exhale and the inhale.  And deep breaths actually calm us down and can help us to regulate when anxiety and fears loom large.

Spiritually and emotionally, life is also found between the exhale and the inhale; the letting go and the receiving.

So today, in whatever state or position you find yourself in; stop, take a deep breath and let it go; receiving the breath of God in exchange.

Choosing God is choosing life.

Living in God's truth is living life abundantly.

Choosing to give thanks is to remember who God is and to add Him into your situation.  Choosing to believe His words of truth leads us to the doorway and on to the path of freedom.

Choosing to live out the truth of God and to believe Him is to find life and to find it to be enough and more than enough.  (Just so you know, it doesn't lessen the validity of what you're walking through it only puts it in its place and allows you to live the miracle of God's upside, miraculous way.)

Choosing God is to choose life.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Deep breaths

The Gift of Abundant Life

We all want life. There's something within us that wants to succeed, to make an impact, to bear fruit.  We really do want to live, even though many times we may want to give up. Grief and pain disturb us, it's not what we were meant to experience.

God breathed into us His breath of life and life is what He still wants to give us.  He tells us in John 10:10 that we can have life abundantly. "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly."

We have an enemy, a thief.  He comes only to steal the life away from us.  He wants to kill it within us.  He wants to destroy life, because when he does, he destroys and gets at God.  He takes something away from God and that is the gift of life.

What does this life look like in your mind?  Bearing fruit?  Being successful at something you enjoy?  Good relationships?

Winter will be following this season of autumn.  Is that life?

What really is life and on top of it, what is the abundant life?

The way of Jesus is a way of paradoxes.  To fully know one thing, we must experience another.  And something I'm starting to see over and over, is that, life isn't always visible.  Actually, I'm realizing, the truest of life happens within.

A tree, when stripped of all leaves, is left bare, naked and vulnerable, is still very much alive.  Winter is a season of rest from producing to replenish.  Roots go deeper in search of nourishment.  Life is happening within.

Just like the tree, we too, have seasons of what feels like we're being stripped, left bare, open, and vulnerable.  

In my own journey, I've come to realize that these seasons are for Jesus.  They are the space He wants us to go deeper with Him.

Have you stopped to wonder why?

We get mixed up a bit, off course in what life is or at least I so easily can gauge my life in what "I am producing".  It's easy to define our success and life with what we do.

These moments of being stripped, finding ourselves bare and vulnerable are moments of grace and an invitation back to the heart of God.

The life within is the truest life and the life He wants to give is deep within our souls.  For when the harsh winds and storms of life happen to us, sending us bending and careening, it's only His love that anchors us.

For me, in my deepest and darkest season, I learned to know God's love for me just as deeply.  Actually deeper, for His love is greater than darkness and hard. It is the abundant life.  It's one that cannot be contained and is not stopped in the face of adversity.  It enables one to see beyond and it is an anchor when the harsh winds blow.

It is knowing loss that we see what is truly important.  It is knowing rejection that kindness shines brighter.  You see, for me, I discovered that when I was stripped, then I discovered what was really of value, what is the most important thing.

And that is simply Jesus.  "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe." Proverbs 18:10.  His love is not hinged on me, doing good nor is it altered when I take a misstep.  His love doesn't change, it only changes me.  Deep within and abundant life takes root.

It's life that can't be taken away because it's not hinged on something that can be lost, but it's tied, anchored in Someone who is faithful, Jesus.

When His love grips us deeply, it grounds us, frees us, and gives us our voice.  Ephesians 3:17-19 (NASB) , "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God." (emphasis added)

In any season, in any joy or hard, let Him whisper His love, unconditional love, in your ear and let it go deep.  Search for Him.  He has told us that when we seek Him, we will find Him.  You may need to wait, but you will find Him. Lamentations 3:24, "The LORD is good to those who await Him, to the person who seeks Him."

And the life you find when you do, will transform you.  He may or may not change your storm, but He will change you.

Sometimes He calms the storm in your heart and other times, He will calm you, so that  you may know Him even deeper.

Friend, fellow-sojourner, I wish you Jesus.  For when you have Jesus, you have everything.