A New Season

The season is changing in Japan. After months of intense heat and humidity, yesterday I shivered in my sweater while working to prepare for report cards. The leaves are changing colour; the air is getting chillier and easier to breathe.

God is bringing me into a new season, too. Maybe it's passing the two-month mark and being over the first stages of culture adjustment, or maybe it's that I'm finally ready to listen to Him and apply His Word to my heart. I have lived a roller coaster of stress-relax-stress-stress-relax-stress. There've been some great moments just to chill out, but I have felt overwhelmed by many things in the last several weeks. This week, report cards, parent conferences, and planning for a new quarter loom on the horizon, but I have experienced a breakthrough in peace! I'm able to do what I could do in college: present my list of things to do to God in prayer, trust that He won't give me more than I can handle, and work through the tasks without panicking because Jesus and I are tackling them together. I don't know what's different in my heart this week, but that's happening again and I am SO thankful! Actually, maybe I do. As I write, I remember the change occurred on Friday night, after reading a friend's email telling her story of victory over how the enemy stole her joy. I realized that I had been allowing the enemy to steal my peace, and I didn't need to let him have me in a bad mood all the time! I chose the joy of the Lord and the peace of God in that moment, and although the list is longer than ever, I haven't experienced a panic attack asking how on earth I will ever get it all done.

I'm reading a book right now called Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster. He tells the story of a man named Frank Laubach. Missionary to the Phillippines and lover of God, he became a man of prayer out of necessity for companionship. Foster writes, "One of the most stunning lessons Laubach learned was how prayer and work blend into one. On 11 March 1937, while working on a literacy plan for the Urdu Dihate Indian dilaect, he wrote, 'Of all today's miracles, the greatest is this: To know that I find Thee best when I work listening, not when I am still or medtative or even on my knees in prayer, but when I work listening and co-operating."

I'm finding the same joy - to work listening and co-operating with Jesus. I don't think this is a season that should end.