Inspiring Scripture About Serving in Quiet Places
The night before our youngest was born, I took a walk in a thundershower. Something about the way the heavens came pouring out like a flood resonated with the past 40 weeks of my poured-out life. I’d been digging into Scripture about serving in hidden places and clinging to God with all my heart, but I still felt spent.
I didn’t really mean to go walking in a storm that night.
The radar called for spotty showers. 30 percent.
Beneath a thick canopy of maples, the early evening sky looked dusky, even on the brink of Solstice. A low rumble of thunder in the west was the only sign that 30 percent was about to become my reality, and as I walked, the droplets were sparse at first, heavy globules, like marbles falling from the sky.
I kept my slow waddle going. Past the camping area where the hemlocks hide the sky. Toward the creek where it bent beneath the clay banks. And when I reached the open air of the creek bottom, the swollen sky fell like a torrent of liquid grace.
Scripture About Serving in Humble Places
I couldn’t help but wonder if heaven was celebrating the fact that I’d made it through a third pregnancy, sickness, couch-bound months, and all. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being doused by a fresh outpouring of God’s pursuant goodness and mercy.
Though I walk through the valley . . . Your goodness and mercy pursue me (Psalm 23:6).
They chase me down.
And maybe I’d missed it all along.
Maybe that long journey through all the months of illness, maybe the fears and the worries and days of depression were planting deep seeds that would yield a new kind of fruit in the next season. And maybe God watered those seeds the whole time, always with goodness and mercy.
The rain pouring hard on my shoulders fell to earth, and the black earth leaped from the ground and stuck to my shins. It soaked to the deepest part of my cotton vestments, and it reminded me of all those months of pouring out so that the child inside of me might have life.
Throughout the long months, there were days when it all seemed unfair, unfair that other women get to celebrate pregnancy, dress in cute smocks, and pose for photo shoots of their beautifully sculpted new bodies. Those days made the pouring out feel like just a little too much.
When It Feels Like Too Much
Maybe your pouring out feels like too much, too. Maybe you’re tired from living in the hard part of a calling. Perhaps the days are wearing on you, and you’re ready to throw in the towel.
If this is you, be encouraged.
While you pour out, God pursues you with these two gifts: goodness and mercy. He is watering the seeds of your pouring season with sweet rain that is sure to yield fruit when the time is right.
While you pour out, God pursues you with these two gifts: goodness and mercy. #GodsGoodness #GodsMercy #pursuedbyGod #seekingGod Click To TweetScripture About Serving in Hidden Places:
Here are a few truths to cling to as you pour your life out in this season:
1. Your pouring out will yield fruit in due time if you don’t give up.
We trust this promise, nestled at the end of Paul’s letter to the Galatian church: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
2. God’s goodness and love pursue you as you serve humbly.
We trust this promise in the familiar words of Psalm 23:6, which reads: Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life . . . (For a full post on how God chases us down with gifts in his hands, click here.)
3. You can rejoice when your life is poured out like a drink offering.
Philippians 2:17 reads: But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. May we humble ourselves with the Apostle Paul, learning to rejoice as God calls us to give ourselves for others.
The morning after the surprise thundershower in the valley, the doctor with the white hair pulled that flailing baby boy from my body: Life springing from the season of outpouring.
And while every season of pouring out doesn’t offer this kind of tangible blessing, there is a reward coming at the end of every thundershower if we keep walking.
Today is not the day to give up. Pause. Rest. Watch for glimpses of goodness.
But don’t give up.
This pouring out might be ushering in the fullest kind of fruit.
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