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September 2 - September 21, 2024
Seasonally, we too are stripped of visible fruit. Our giftings are hidden; our abilities are underestimated.
Abundance may make us feel more productive, but perhaps emptiness has greater power to strengthen our souls.
In spiritual winters, our fullness is thinned so that, undistracted by our giftings, we can focus upon our character.
Like a tree planted by living water, we focus upon our primary responsibility: remaining in him.
we can spend years feeling that the greatest part of us is submerged in the unseen, as though others can only see the tip of the iceberg of who we really are.
10% visible + 90% unseen = an indestructible life
it is critical that we not mistake unseen for unimportant.
anonymous seasons are sacred spaces. They are quite literally formative; to be rested in, not rushed through—and most definitely never to be regretted.
Unapplauded, but not unproductive: hidden years are the surprising birthplace of true spiritual greatness.
“I feel that trials do not prepare us for what’s to come as much as they reveal what we’ve done with our lives up to this point.”
Because the decisions we make
in difficult places today are greatly the product of decisions we made in the unseen places of our yesterdays.
today’s decisions foreshadow tomorrow’s challenges
and reflect yesterday’s choices.
“today” does not exist in a vacuum. Each day is in some way shaped by the days preceding it and in turn has an effect upon the days following it.
the reason no course looked like a filler was because, from the master chef’s perspective, no course was a filler. To him, every course was main.
Father God is neither care-less nor cause-less with how he spends our lives. When he calls a soul simultaneously to greatness and obscurity, the fruit—if we wait for it—can change the world.
Hidden years, when heeded, empower a soul to patiently trust God with their press releases. All that waiting actually grants us the strength to wait a little longer and not rush God’s plans for our lives.
Jesus appears to have walked unstressed and unhurried. His peaceful pace seems to imply that he measured himself not by where he was going and how fast he could get there but by
whom he was following and how closely they walked together.
He hears Father God’s trio of relationship, commitment, and approval toward the beginning in a river valley and toward the end on a mountaintop.
“I love you, my child, my friend. You are my treasure. And I am so very proud of you.”
Anonymous seasons afford us the opportunity to establish God as our souls’ true point of reference if we resist underestimating how he treasures our hiddenness and take the time to decide whose attention and acceptance really matters in our lives.
desert is actually a descriptor for lonely places and uninhabited regions.
Time is not really spent. Instead, it is invested in a future we cannot see.
There in the poorly lit crawl spaces of life (transitions, prolonged waiting, new additions to the family, preparatory education, relocation, retirement, unexplainable loss, extended illness, irresolvable conflict, and all else that tends to hide us) God builds within us a sturdy support system for our souls.
As the clock keeps ticking, the stresses of appetite, applause, and authority expose the state of our hearts and the stability of our souls.
Think of Satan’s lures as truly tasty treats offered on camouflaged, razor-sharp hooks.
In the layer of appetite, we witness Satan’s skillful use of a most effective lure: immediate gratification.
Effective lures exploit otherwise neutral human longings such as our natural yearning for sustenance, shelter, safety, relationship, pleasure, and significance.
Satan was not saying, “If you are the Son of God, prove it!” but rather, “Since you are the Son of God, act like it!”
As Jesus meditated on God’s Word, that Word anchored and strengthened him to choose a better way
God’s truth clears the fog in our minds, provides much-needed boundaries for our
emotions, and empowers our wills to choose well.
victory was waiting for Jesus to reposition his felt appetite behind God’s eternal will.
when God’s will and Word take the driver’s seat in our lives, our feelings and desires are free to follow cleanly without regrets within safe boundaries.
Hidden years provided the space for Jesus (and provide the space for us) to invest in Scripture meditation and memorization.
Self-control is “the restraint exercised over one’s own impulses, emotions, or desires.”1. In other words, it is the ability to discipline our appetites.
What grows in anonymous seasons? An accurate portrait of God. Anchoring ourselves in God’s Word is close to impossible if, in our hearts, we are unsure that God and his Word are good.
remember that every choice we make today influences a tomorrow we cannot see.
Today always counts. If we fail to deal with issues today, they will deal with us tomorrow. And choosing truth not only always makes a difference, it makes a difference that compounds exponentially to bless our future!
when we say yes to temptations of appetite, regardless of our reasoning, we are choosing to feed sin that Jesus died for.
No amount of education or height of accomplishment can substitute for self-control in the layer of appetite. Hidden years grant us the space to learn
The longing for human affirmation in itself is not sinful. But living for that longing is both self-serving and shortsighted.
honoring God’s ways and living for man’s awe are mutually incompatible goals.
hidden years provide the opportunity for us to wrestle with what truly makes us significant.
In each season of hiddenness, our sense of value is disrupted. Stripped of what others affirmed in us, we
it is absolutely critical that we not live out in our thoughts what we know we should not live out in our lives.
Vain imaginations make us discontent with our current realities. The spiritual, moral, and relational repercussions
it is when we forget who we are that we are most vulnerable to bowing down.
