“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” 1 Samuel 16:7
If you’ve ever spent time around me, you’ve likely heard me refer to seasons of life. In having been a travel nurse for nearly three years, I formed a habit of viewing each three month stent as a season from the Lord and I would almost always utilize each transition from one assignment to the next to reflect on the ways in which that season had been used in my journey, or at least as far as I could tell at the time.
What had the Lord taught me? How had He shaped me? How had He equipped me in going forward?
I quickly became thankful for the opportunity to see my life in this way and truly, I hope to continue in reflecting upon my life in seasons no matter my circumstances.
What’s a season without some change? Not only was I seeing changes within my occupation, such as the actual hospital itself and my coworkers, or my physical location on a map, but my day to day life constantly faced change too… in fact, it still does and I’m sure the same for you.
I remember being in the midst of my most recent assignment in Boston. My sense of community was very limited, COVID restricted a lot of options of things to do around the city, and the winter weather kept me indoors quite a bit more than is usual for me. However, in the Lord’s perfect timing, I was also within a season in which I was greatly craving intimate time with the Lord. Rather than waking up and wishing I had other options, I would wake excited to spend my time learning, studying, praying, and writing. I began to see my days away from the hospital as days of filling my heart and fueling my love. As my eagerness to intentionally invite the Lord into my each and every day grew, my awareness of His presence in the details only increased.
It was at this time, that I remember listening to a podcast about the importance of quiet time with the Lord, in which the speaker said something to the extent of, “There will be seasons that you will have hours with the Lord and seasons when it is all you can do to spend five quiet minutes with Him before the kids wake up.”
Though I wasn’t necessarily taking my intimate time with the Lord for granted in those days, I immediately began to more greatly value the seemingly abundant amount of time that I had available for the Lord, and the Lord alone. Just hearing those words in the podcast led me to take a step back from the season that I was in, even from the midst of it, and opened my eyes to the reality that this time with the Lord was yet another varying component within the changing of these seasons. I began to more greatly see my time with Him as precious and became aware that it is never guaranteed.
Over the past month or so, I have experienced some pretty rapid changes in the winds of life. Before mid-August, I was in a season of rest with the Lord. I was getting even more time with Him than had been available to me in Boston and I was soaking in every single ounce of it. I would wake up, find my spot at my picnic table overlooking Lake Tahoe or a seat in my favorite local coffee shop, and just read and write for hours. Suddenly, with the call to deploy to Jackson, Mississippi as a member of the disaster response team, all of that changed.
The amount of time to spend intimately with the Lord shrunk immensely and quickly. Just as the podcaster had warned, it went from what seemed like hours on end to setting my alarm clock just a little bit earlier for a few minutes alone with God.
Fast forward a few weeks later, immediately following the deployment, and I found myself back in North Carolina, an area that I called home for a while in the past. I was able to fill my days with intentional time with friends and family who I had not seen in a while, and many of whom have been my supportive faith community throughout the past four years, but again, my intimate time with the Lord was limited in comparison to that season of rest spent on the shore of Lake Tahoe.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Did my intimate time with the Lord change? Absolutely. Was that a bad thing? Not necessarily.
Remember that whole concept of seasons? The Lord takes us through different seasons, not only to shape us, but also to allow us to spread our wings; to put our lessons from each season into action. Sometimes He takes us through seasons of rest to prepare to be in the middle of the battlefield. Sometimes He allows us an abundance of time with Him to equip us for whatever lies ahead. Sometimes He leads us to walk alone with Him, and sometimes He surrounds us with our Brethren in Christ.
Though I didn’t have my hours of quiet time in Mississippi, I did get to take part in our team devotionals, to ‘do life’ with my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, to witness the presence of the Lord in so many details, and to share the love of Christ with those who he had put in my path. In North Carolina, I was no longer working day after day in the field hospital, but my schedule was filled with ‘appointments’ of reconnection. Again, I wasn’t getting to spend as much time directly in the Word, but I was getting to fellowship with my Brothers and Sisters in Christ and rejoice in their stories, while simultaneously being humbled and encouraged by my faith community in the way that they have continued to support me from afar even after many years.
Every season has purpose and intention, and it seems that when you begin to grasp the lesson of one season, it’s time to continue on in an opportunity to shape what has been learned as a building block for the next stone to be placed upon.
I want to begin to wrap this up with a few points of encouragement.
1. Be aware of the season that you are in, especially the things that may be unique to this particular season, and appreciate it.
2. Recognize what your time with the Lord looks like in this season and rest in it.
3. Identify the moments that you have available for intimate time with the Lord, and capitalize on it.
4. Acknowledge that every season will come with change, and show yourself some grace.
It has been so easy for me to begin to get down on myself for not spending as much time in the Word as I feel like I should be, especially in coming out of a season in which that time made up so much of my every day, but it has been so important for me to recognize that it too is a change with the seasons and that the feeling of ‘should be’ is really only coming from me. Am I eager for that intimate time with the Lord? Yes! And I hope for that to never fade. But I have learned to show myself some grace when the Lord has led me to a new seasons, such as a season with more fieldwork or fellowship.
In a moment when I was really feeling eager for more time with the Lord than that which was available from my schedule, I was met with this scripture.
“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” 1 Samuel 16:7
Friend, the Lord looks at the heart; your heart and my heart. He isn’t watching for us to check items off of a list. He isn’t even watching for us to do all of the ‘church things’ or the things that we think we need to do to please Him. He is looking at our hearts, our deepest desires, and our love for Him that is fueling our every thought and motion. He knows when you are eager for more time with Him and He also knows when He has sufficiently equipped you for a new season; perhaps a season with less intimate time with Him and more hands on time with the world.
