Changing Seasons and Shady Trees

Soon, I'm anticipating a shift in seasons. I wish I was talking about temperatures dropping and leaves changing colors, but that kind of season change is almost non-existent in Niger. In two weeks kindergarten will be over. Teaching for the last two years was a completely unexpected and halfway unplanned season. It has been a tough at times, but when I look back on these days I'll remember the good (because I romanticize life like that). 

When I think about kindergarten at Sahel Academy, I'll think about the drawings and little love letters that would be pulled from take-home folders and handed to me on a random Tuesday morning. I'll think about sitting face-to-face with students discussing stories from Creation to Christ, and the daily growth that I could see in (most of) their sweet faces and hungry hearts. 

The season I'm anticipating is somewhat uncharted water. In ways, the work will be familiar: scheduling, purchasing, helping. It will also be new: healthy communication, ministry with many people who don't speak the same language, emphasis on self-discipline, full-time work on a support raised "salary". It's easy to be anxious about a new season, and we are told to fight that with prayer. I'm trying. Some days my prayer looks like a breath as I remind myself to relax my shoulders or stop clenching my jaw. Some days my prayer sounds like questioning the Lord in a desperate attempt to understand things I may not fully know until His return. In a sermon from October 2022, Louie Giglio (basically this blog's pastor) said prayer is: "a steady state of awareness of Father, Son and Spirit creating constant and seamless union of heart and mind with the Almighty that shifts earthly perspective, plans, and purposes as heaven becomes visible on earth."

Creating constant snd seamless union of heart and mind with the Almighty. The Scriptures say we are to never. stop. praying. Never ending the state of awareness that we have access to the Holy Father, and constantly acknowledging that a moment with him can shift our perspective, plans, and purpose entirely. I'm welcoming this state of awareness during my shifting season.

Confession: In my appreciation for changing seasons, I've been believing a lie that I am in a dry season. That what I'm doing doesn't produce any fruit, like a dead tree. I know this is not true in my core, but it can be difficult to not give in.

This past Monday I was letting my class play outside in the grueling heat and trying to find some reprieve under a couple trees. One of the workers who always has a dad-joke at the ready walked up and asked, "Ms. Kerra, do you know Abraham?" I blankly stared waiting for the punchline in a joke about Lincoln. He stared back and broke the silence, "You're sitting under a tamarisk tree like the one Abraham (of the Bible) planted and called on the Eternal God." Normally I would fake a laugh or nod and smile pretending like I knew this random Bible fact, but this was a God-wink and I knew the scripture exactly. Abraham planted the tamarisk tree to commemorate a treaty that he forged with a Philistine ruler, Abimelek. This was after Abimelek recognized "God [was] with [Abraham] in everything [He did]." (Genesis 21:22)

Almost two-years ago when I moved to Niger, I was doing Bible study with my then teammate. I came across the tamarisk tree's debut in Beersheba (Genesis 21:33) and paused. I asked my teammate if we had these kind of trees in Niger and we had a whole discussion about tamarind vs. tamarisk. We concluded that both exist here. I circled this passage and noted that the name of God Abraham used was "El Olam" meaning "He is God for a long time and forever." In this context, I understand it as the God of the covenant (everlasting promise). It is also interpreted as the God who gives us eternal life.

Somehow, two years ago I knew that I would need to be reminded of the covenant and the Promise-Keeper. This week in my stillness, laziness, being quiet (but not the reverent kind), whatever you want to call it -- in my spacing-out sitting under a "random" tree, I was reminded that He sees and He cares. He requires obedience and He is gracious. When He was making the covenant with Abraham, He put ol' Abe into a deep sleep (almost like death) so that the deal was not contingent upon anything Abraham did or didn't do. Abraham was still obedient (though not always perfectly). He still took Isaac to the mountain to be sacrificed. Abraham was still humble, and Abraham still had faith that God would do what He said He would. 

I'm so grateful that even when I it feels like am sleep-walking through life, El Olam is faithful and just. God is with me in everything I do. In changing seasons, waiting seasons, fruitful seasons -- all seasons, He is with you too. He is so faithful and it is an honor and immense joy to be obedient and see the fruit. Psalm 1 sings, "the joy of those who delight in the law of the Lord, mediating on it day and night; they are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit in EACH season." Trees don't produce fruit overnight; some take several hundred years to develop but our obedience will bless generations, and that makes all the difference. May we never give up delighting in the Lord, aware that one moment with Him changes everything. He is our reprieve.