“Your Fullness is Mine.”
January 2024
For the heart longing for life. For fullness of life. For abundance of life. And for joy.
I read a line somewhere that said something like, “life was good, but it wasn’t abundant,” and that’s exactly how I felt after returning to home/school/eastern life after being on my own in a very different western desert world for a summer. I was frustrated with myself for feeling lifeless and numb- I was home, I was back at the school I loved with the people I loved, living a life that should’ve felt much easier than the one I’d lived that summer. I felt a dissonance in my soul as I tried to make sense of this “comfortable” life again. Surely, I should’ve FELT comfortable. I should’ve felt alive.
For months I struggled trying to experience the Lord in the same way that felt so raw and accessible in the desert- trying to feel as “upheld” as I did there.
Why did the long days and lonely nights stripped of the faith-stewarding community I was used to suddenly feel so much more full than the life of comfort I came back to? The life full of everything I lacked in the desert. I think, if anything, God was trying to teach me that fullness of life comes from Him alone.
In the desert there was spiritual wilderness around me where I was forced to lean deeply into the provision of the Lord in a way I had never experienced before. I was made painfully aware of my attitude of self-sufficiency and dependence on a sense of “knowing”. I was thrown into a place where all of my expectations were uprooted, there was no shared Godly community to encourage me in my faith, and my own strength was rapidly failing. BUT GOD.
Thanks to the Lord and his goodness I was able to experience a sense of total surrender, reliance that he would supply the strength to get up in the morning, to deal with difficult people and situations, and to plant seeds of his truth and love as I went.
Coming back into a “comfortable” life, a life of routine, one where I know what to expect and have access to my people thrust me into a world that tempts to believe that joy and rest are found in all of those things. Life wasn’t comfortable- I came back to changes in friendships, family dynamics, changes in the way life had always worked… and I think the Lord was trying to get my attention.
The work doesn’t stop in “comfortable” or “routine” places. The work doesn’t stop at home. It doesn’t stop with family or with friends or at school. The work doesn’t stop in communities you once knew. Even when you feel like your heart is being burdened for someplace else, I don’t truly think seasons of “transition” exist. Every place and time and season have God-given purpose. The time is now. Will you walk in it?
Now substitute “work” for “rest”: Rest isn’t born in “comfortable” or “routine” places. Rest isn’t born at home. It doesn’t come from family or friends or places you love. Rest isn’t dependent on communities you once knew. Even when you feel like your heart is being burdened for someplace else, true “rest” cannot be thwarted by transition. We have access to rest in every place and time and season. The time is now. Will you abide in it?
Fullness of life comes from walking in the life the Lord has prepared for you. Living every moment for His glory according to His design. Not just the moments that feel like they should belong to God- every moment is His to give to you in the first place. He will give you rest. He will give you joy. He will give you fullness of life.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came
that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10