The LINK: 2/01
Family and friends of Congo-Pres,
Grace and peace!
Last year around this time, I went on a retreat with some pastors, spiritual directors, worship leaders, and chaplains. It was after that extreme frost, and when the snow lingered. And this was specifically a spiritual retreat around the practice of making space for God.
The assumption is that there often we live in ways that we don’t make space for God, whether with how busy we are, or the storms that swirl inside us, or whatever emotional or spiritual blocks we have to spending time with our maker, redeemer, and sustainer.
And my friend who led the retreat dropped this line from the writer Madeline L’Engle: Winter reveals structure.
To me, it sounded a little out there at first, but when you think about it, it’s a great metaphor. In spring and summer, when I look out the window at the trees on 8th Avenue, I see the blossoms turn green, and a tree takes on its shape with all of its beauty, with all it’s white and pink and then green. And then in the winter, all that’s left is the trunk and the branches.
In our lives there are seasons- sometimes literally in winter!- where we are stripped away of all the things that cover us, that we can hide behind, that we can focus on. Massive disruption or change, heartbreak, bad news, or any number of things can reveal who we actually are when that’s taken away.
And that is deeply biblical. In the Letter to the Colossians, after Paul has declared that Christ gives new life, he demonstrates what happens in our life after that, namely, that we are stripped away of certain things, and our true being and identity is revealed:
These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that [former] life. But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:7-10)
The things that we used to protect ourselves, our egos, our self-justifications are all being taken away like the leaves in winter. And underneath it all, the new self, that knows God and the image of it’s creator (which is Christ!) is being revealed.
Winter reveals structure. Maybe in this literal winter, or in a season that lasts far longer, in the struggles of life, or the ways in which we’ve been humbled or confess our limits, whether we’re called to repent, wake up, or just face the facts, we are being stripped of all those things that are not God, so that we can grow into who God created us to be.
These days may be short with long nights, the things happening within us, to us, or around us may be difficult. But in that, maybe all those things that we held onto are being stripped away, to reveal what is most true: you belong to God, and you have calling given to you to love God, one another, and our nieghbors. Whatever gets in the way of that might be ripped away, or gently fall off in its time. But when it does, our hope is that God is working within and through us. Always.
Blessings to you in this winter,
Pastor Adam