Walking Through the Seasons of Our Lives: Part 2

Seeing Life Through the Eyes of God

No doubt life is a blessing, however, at the same time it can be very challenging. The fact is every life is simply a series of lives, each one of them with its own task, its own flavor, its own brand of errors, its own glories, its own kind of deep dank despair, & its own plethora of possibilities. Through each stage of our living, God our Creator is walking with us to show us the way & in that reality is comfort, strength & hope to go forward in the living of our days. The task of every separate stage of life is to confront its fears so that it can become more then it was. For the young, it is overcoming the fear of functioning alone. For the middle aged, it is the fear of failure. For those of us who have moved beyond the middle years, it is learning to cope with the fear of weakness.

As full & wonderful as life is, because we are human, whether we are young, middle age, or older, life gets tiring sometimes & we get just plain weary. You know what I mean? Obviously, these physical bodies we live in that house our spirits get physically tired from time to time from lack of sleep, or hard work, or too much to do & we need to rest. In addition to the physical need for rest however, because we are human beings with emotions, when the storms of life assail us, regardless of what season of life we find ourselves in, we all can get weary & find it difficult to keep going. The weariness & tiredness both, the Psalmist as well as Jesus, are quoted as promising to relieve us from as written in the Holy Scriptures, goes much deeper than the need for a good night of sleep. What they are speaking of as soul weariness, is the weariness of our souls that often emerges when our souls are stretched to the point of breaking. It is at those times that we need to step out in faith & trust that God is there & always will be, for we need God to help us & guide us & assure us in order to renew our weary souls.

Weariness of the soul can descend upon us in those times when grief overwhelms us & our life energy is depleted. It is at those times when our souls are weary that we often feel like we don’t know whether we can face another day. When it feels like life is crushing us & we can’t see a way through a difficult period, doubt often creeps in & we feel like giving up. We’ve all been there at one time or another haven’t we? When we are overwhelmed & depleted, life often feels unmanageable & we need help to regain & restore our walk. We read in the Holy Scriptures that God promises to walk with us, to revive us & to carry us through all the storms of life regardless of the season we are in. When our souls are crushed, we need to call on God & He will breathe new life into our depleted souls. All things are possible through God. He calls us to lean on Him, to follow Him, to share our burdens with Him & He will heal our weary souls & give us rest.

When you & I hurt deeply, & feel weary, & our souls feel stretched to the point of breaking, what we really need is not an explanation from God but rather we need a revelation from God. We need to see & to be reminded of just how steadfast God’s love for us & all of His creation really is. When our souls feel lost, broken & weary, we feel hopeless & helpless, we need to recover our lost perspective on life & lean on God for strength & healing. Things tend to get out of proportion when we are suffering, & it takes a vision of something bigger than ourselves to get life’s dimensions adjusted again. God reveals Himself to us in many different ways; through the Holy Word, through prayer, through Communion, through worship & song, & through friends who serve as intercessors for Him as they reflect His light for us & in so doing remind us who we are & to whom we belong. Additionally, we know God through all of creation. He is ever present in all living things; through the changing leaves of the seasons, through migrating geese that fly in harmony as they migrate looking out for one another, through the bounty of the earth that we harvest & give thanks for as we celebrate with family & friends we are blessed to share life with & with caterpillars transitioning into butterflies (among many other things). We are surrounded by God our Creator. To heal our weary souls all we need to do is call on Him & follow Him & new life will be breathed back into our broken souls. As we breathe in God’s Grace we can breathe out Praise for God & healing with be restored to our souls. The prophets remind us that there are two visions or views in our world. One sees hopelessness & the other sees hope. One sees brokenness & the other sees healing & wholeness. One sees life circumstance through our limited human vision & the other sees life through God’s eyes. When we see life through the eyes of God everything changes & even in times of suffering & weariness, when our souls feel stretched to the point of breaking, healing will be given.

Life is good & challenging. It is up to us how we will live amidst the challenges. We invite you all to come to the Lord in prayer & seek to embrace His wholistic vision. Trust in the Lord with all your heart & lean not on your own understanding for He has promised to walk with us through all our seasons .

Prayer

“Be thou my vision, O lord of my heart; naught be all else to me save that thou art. Thou my best thought by day of by night, waking or sleeping thy presence my light. Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word, I ever with thee and thou with me Lord; Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

AMEN (so let it be so)

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy