We're thinking through spiritual seasons: chunks of time that serve specific spiritual purposes. These seasons are not to be confused with pumpkin latte season. That's where the spiritual discipline aspect of it comes into play. We are often more willingly engulfed by the seasonal wares of the mass-market than by the spiritual seasons tenderly executed in our lives by the living God.
God may have you in a season of simplicity, trying to drive a few basic points home, trying to help you discover simplistic acts of worship and the simplicity of His love for you, but you will stop by Target and load up a cart with fall junk, make an impossible must-accomplish list, sign your kids up for that extra activity no one has time for, dive into a new friendship because you'll feel guilty if you don't make plans, and on and on. God may have you in a season of loneliness - on purpose! - gasp! Perhaps He is trying to teach you to rely on Him alone. Perhaps He is trying to correct false expectations in relationship, or to fashion you into a better friend. Regardless, you'll fight against this season by joining a few dozen chat rooms, hammering down a friendship door that's been closed, insisting the problem isn't you and talking the ear off your barista while she's frantically trying to make ten pumpkin lattes simultaneously. (Side note - What is it with the pumpkin latte? Is there no other flavor of fall?!)
I am an action person. My catch phrase when my DH gets up in the morning is "I've had a few ideas." Sometimes, I remember to wait until he's made his coffee. My home is filled with materials for potential hobbies. My calendar is full. I have agendas that go into 2050 and beyond.
I am a take-charge person. This committee doesn't have a leader? I'll do it! This agenda doesn't have a committee? I'll start one!
So, as you might imagine, when I read about the Apostle Paul, I am with a kindred spirit. His enthusiasm, boldness (rashness?), adventurous nature, and - let's just say it - bossiness resonate with my internal nature so rightly that sometimes, I feel there's more for me to learn in what it means to be a Christian by studying his life than any other scriptural study I could do. You know the feeling - when you find someone like yourself, but they're doing it RIGHT, you hold on tight and follow their every move.
So imagine my surprise when I stumble upon Galatians 1:17, somehow having gone unnoticed before. Here it is in context:
But when God, who had set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas (Peter), and stayed with him fifteen days.
Did you catch it? This is Paul telling the Galatians about his conversion. He recounts that after his conversion, rather than jumping right to work - running immediately to Jerusalem, as I'd assumed he did, he instead went to Arabia, where for about three years he spent time away from the apostles, the church and the spreading of the gospel.
Theologian Rev. C. W. Briggs says: "Many of the authorities on the life of Paul...conclude that he spent that amount of time in reflection; that he found himself in much confusion as a result of the vision near Damascus and that this time was required for intellectual and theological readjustment before he would be equipped for his great career as an apostle."
Doesn't this sound unlike the Paul we know from Acts who escapes death in one city only to quickly face it in another? If it wasn't for his letter to the Galatians, we wouldn't know about this period of his life. It's mentioned nowhere else. Luke, the writer of Acts didn't consider it a noteworthy event in the life of the church, not important enough to include in his history, and yet it was this time away that shaped Saul into Paul, the evangelist and apostle that helped bring thousands to Christ.
So, let me ask the obvious question. Are you, like Paul, in a season of transformation? A season of retreat? A season of relearning? A season that might seem unnecessary and unfruitful? A season that others might leave unmentioned when writing your history? A season that seems to produce little fruit? A season that seemed long enough at the six month mark, but has gone on and on?
If so, consider yourself in good company, for Paul, known to be a go-getter, a dive-right-to-the problem kind of guy, was, like you, called away to a time of retreat. A time that seemed to be only about the individual, but as it ended and Paul returned to the throes of action, proved to be foundational to the growth of the entire church.
I imagine him in Arabia, pouring over the scrolls he'd grown up with, reading them as a new revelation now with Christ in mind. I imagine Paul showing up at Ananias' doorstep, several years after Ananias removed the scales from Saul's eyes. I imagine Paul introducing himself as that man from years ago, now embracing his new name, and in secret, asking Ananias all the questions he cannot show up at temple and ask. Asking for more details of Jesus' life.
It is those three years in Arabia and Damascus that gave Paul the authoritative voice to answer many of the early churches problems, to formulate the doctrine of church life. Of course this is Paul we're talking about, so this was also three years without shipwrecks, beatings and imprisonments. A time in Paul's life to experience the peace of Christ and be confident in giving up his own life for the very cause he'd once persecuted.
And at the end of it, what does he do? Show up in Jerusalem, to spend two weeks with Peter. How surprised Peter must have been. Then Peter, talker that he was, must have embraced this new brother, and told story after story of first-hand accounts of Jesus, Paul's savior.
I wonder what God has in store for you after your season of retreat?
Whatever it is, you'll be able to endure and carry out his tasks because of the retreat He calls you into now.
Are you experiencing a season of retreat? How so? How do you make room for that in the midst of life?
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