When things started shifting and shutting down for the Coronavirus I felt an urgency saying “It’s time to prepare.” It’s time to be really intentional. I felt like this pandemic wasn’t going to be that bad. It’s just a warning. Like the Braxton Hicks contractions. It’s not real labor, but it’s a warning to get ready. We’re getting closer. Are you mentally ready? Are you spiritually ready? Are you physically ready for what’s coming? I felt that urgency so strongly it makes me weep. I have been frustrated with myself because I haven’t been as intentional in preparing as I want to be.
I want to make the most of this time when the world is completely thrown off-kilter. There’s been teachings and training and resources I think I need. I want more time with the Lord and there just isn’t time for all of it.
On the one hand, I’m giving myself credit for being intentional, even if it is looking different than I thought it would. God is speaking to me through training and different things that I wouldn’t necessarily have expected, which is ridiculous because there were things I was compelled to be part of.
Practice intention from Easter to Pentecost
I want to be more clear about my expectations and intention for the time between Easter and Pentecost. What is it that I want to have by Pentecost? What is it that I want to nurture and develop? Will I be able to say I have grown in this season instead of it just being a season?
The Lord has been challenging me, and that I want to challenge you. Will you look back on this season in your life and have it be a season that is marked by a government quarantine, by fear, or loss? Or will it be a season marked by a deeper relationship with the Lord, a clearer sense of your calling and your identity, or growth of your faith?
How will you mark this time?
You get to choose what will this season be marked by. Will it be the misery of having to school kids at home and not even choose your own way, you had no warning? What will you be marked by in this season? Will you allow God to mark you for His purpose, for His calling? Will you set aside the distractions to nurture and develop. Will you be intentional?
Birthing changes everything
Come back to the idea of birthing for a moment. If you’re trying to get pregnant you make changes before you even get pregnant. You’re conscious of what you’re eating and good nutrition so your body is prepared. During the pregnancy, you give up caffeine and alcohol.
Everything changes. As soon as you know there is a baby you mentally immediately make room for them and your body is making room for them. It’s an intentional process. It’s growing. It’s stretching. It’s uncomfortable. The result is so worth it.
This can be that kind of season
What are you intentionally consuming to be healthy and to be prepared? What needs to shift to make room for whatever it is that God wants to birth in you. And who do you need to come alongside you? What needs to get out of the way for you to be able to carry to term what He has conceived in you for it to be birthed and for it to be sustained after its birth?
Birth is a very short process in the span of a lifetime
Getting something out and getting it started isn’t enough. After a baby is born you need to continue to nurture and support and care for years before the baby the Lord birthed through us is ready to run on its own. Are you prepared to do that?
It’s time
It’s time to grow, it’s time to be healed. It’s time to get stuff out of the way of our yes. Out of the way of our follow-through for whatever God is calling us to. For this next season, there may be small things that need to get set out of the way. Maybe there are some big things. There will continue to be more. That doesn’t mean life is going to get more and more restricted. It means more and more freedom. It means clarity about what’s important. The yeses and the nos become easy and crystal clear instead of so many choices because we don’t really know what we’re about and it doesn’t really matter that much.
Do you sense the call to rise up? Do you sense the urgency that “it’s time”?
Maybe it’s a book the Lord’s been telling you to write. Maybe it’s a ministry He’s been telling you to start. Maybe it’s getting to know Him so that no matter what comes, you’re okay.
If this resonates with you, I would love to know. (If none of it made sense, I would love to know that, too.) If this resonates with you and you want support, I would love to know what kind of support you need. I would love your ideas. I need to know what you need to be supported.
