cool days and hot chai

They are both welcome here.

September is always a season of waiting for me. Contenting myself with a return to rhythms and comfortable routines, while also waiting expectantly for what the Lord will do next in this season - what doors He will open, what priorities He will place on my heart, and how He will ask me to redeem the time He has given me. Some seasons of waiting are easier than others. This one is particularly challenging, even on this gorgeous Monday morning.

I've been studying in Deuteronomy 29-31 and Joshua 1, as the children of Israel after literally years of wandering and waiting are preparing to enter a new season, across the Jordan River. Their arrival here, let's remember, has been far from straightforward and has required an unbelievable amount of patience - with God, with themselves, and with those around them. I cannot even imagine that feeling, standing there on those riverbanks, thinking of all that has lead them there.

These chapters in Deuteronomy and Joshua are callings to the people - not just those who were standing there that day, but "with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today" (Deut. 29:15) - to courageous obedience. It takes continual, strong faith to believe that what is ahead is better than what was left behind, especially when the behind is known, and the ahead is very unknown. But I've thought for a few weeks on this, and I can't come up with a place in Scripture where God tells the people to go back. It's always, "Go forward." That's the message that follows here in Deuteronomy 29: "You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations."

It's tempting, when we're waiting, and when we've been waiting for a long time, to turn aside and to seek those needs fulfilled in some other, lesser (but more attainable, more tangible) way. But we are called to trust instead, that in the future, God is able to do even more than He has done in the past. That's a message we read in Isaiah 43: "Remember not the former things, not consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert" (Isaiah 43:19). While we are always called to remember the faithfulness of God in the past, we are equally called to believe that this same faithfulness will go before us into the future. We can trust Him with the invisible unknowns, because we can see His past faithfulness in the now-visible, now-knowns. We cannot dwell in the past while holding our arms open expectantly for the future also. We have to trust that what is ahead will be better than what is behind - otherwise we find ourselves sinking a bit into acedia and despair.

For me today, the steps forward are still very mundane - loving my family, laundry, and a latte. But those are the things that carry us into the next week, and the next season, and I have to trust that each step I take is one that God is using to work His future plan that is yet unknown to me.