It’s that strange transitional time of year where everyone is wanting fall but getting 98 degree days. Even the shelves at Walmart are confused! You see clearanced out school supplies next to Halloween candy, the garden center has scarecrows, empty space, dried up ferns and tropicals with a small section of mums, as if they won’t burn to a crisp before actual fall arrives. I laughed out loud when I saw those plastic black office storage containers lined all the way down one of the main aisles with the leftover spring/summer patio pillows stuffed in as to proudly and prominently display them. We call this ‘false fall’ in Texas. We’ll get a glimpse of cooler temps and everyone breaks out their favorite sweater and is sweating off their makeup by noon. It’s 100 degrees outside but PSLs just dropped at Starbucks. It is a WEIRD time. Nothing quite fits. Things seem to be a little out of order with what’s being manufactured and actual reality.
Usually by August, I’ve at least ‘soft-launched’ my fall décor. For sure by mid-September, it is a full send of pumpkins, leaves and comfy earth tones. This year was different. I noticed the shift in July, when after the 4th, I wasn’t planning, buying and crafting for fall trying to usher it in early. I take fall so seriously, y’all. It has been MY SEASON since before there was a platform to go viral on. I noticed every time the muscle memory of ‘fall-ing’ would have otherwise spurred me on to pumpkins and plaid I felt a check in my spirit. I felt God say, ‘not yet’. I noticed my desire to revel in the next season before it had come had shrunk, and the need to revel in God right where I was at had grown. Hallelujah!
It’s not that my love for the season of fall has diminished in any way, more that, I’m keenly and kindly aware of the importance of not letting a single moment slip without soaking it all in – for what it’s worth, for what it actually is. Every last ray of warm sunshine.
I felt the itch to proceed like I had every ten plus years prior to join in with the false fall ignorant bliss. And while we did get to enjoy a beautiful, cool night next to the bonfire with friends, I realized to refrain was actually a prophetic act of obedience, though I wasn’t sure why. Near the end of the first week of September, I thought surely I was safe. And yet, a holy reverence and obedience told me ‘not yet’. So there I was, mid-September, days away from the sun and moon agreeing that it was fall and still, not a single pumpkin present at our humble abode. It was like God was asking me not to delight in it yet, out of season.
By September 16th, I finally sat before God about it, instead of just listening and obeying on the fly. It was time to get to the root of this thing, knowing God doesn’t care about plastic pumpkins, especially when they bring me so much joy…
Linger with me. There’s no pressure to perform in my presence. Delight in me, instead of delighting in the season. Rejoice in me, instead of rejoicing in a false god. Worship me, and not the thing your hands have made. The seasons are here today and gone tomorrow. I want you to learn to delight and rejoice in me. I am always. I want you to learn to glean from me through all of life’s seasons. I am outside of time. The seasons change, but I do not. Glean what can be gleaned in this season, do not yearn for the next before it’s time. Remain. Linger with me for awhile. Occupy this space that you are in. Take up every square inch and every second of every minute. Do not chase what can never be caught. I am here. Now. Today. Forever. I am all yours.
Thank you, LORD! Don’t let me trade you in for lesser things. You are my desire, not the performance. You are my portion, not what I can produce.
It is a device of the enemy to have you jonesing for another time than the one you are in right now. Don’t be deceived, this is not about pumpkins. It’s deeper than that. The enemy knows ONLY GOD is outside of time and your ONLY ANOINTING is in today. He knows if he can get you to focus on the next season, or even nostalgically caught up in the past, he can get you to forfeit what is yours now. Which is where your power and authority on earth is. MANNA!!! The Israelites had to learn the art of ‘give us this day our daily bread’.
Every time God asks or says something weird, I’ve learned to perk my ears up and lean in. There is always more to the story. There is always a double meaning in the spiritual for what you see in the natural.
In 2021, I begrudgingly, awestruckly realized the ‘it’ I had so pleaded with him for seven years to reveal, the purpose I was to pursue, vocational ministry. I shudder at the thought, even still. We wrestled through it then, and I find myself beating back my flesh today to even be typing this. “But I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward-to Jesus.”
'Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward-to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision-you'll see it yet! Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it.' Philippians 3:13-16 MSG
I struggle with how to move forward between what makes sense in the flesh and what is obedience by Spirit. What and when is mine to do. Soon after launching this website and online ministry, my world was completely and utterly turned upside down. Then, two years later, it turned right-side up again but, with equal and opposite brute force. If I’m honest, the turbulence silenced me as I looked to the skies, waiting for the ‘all clear’. My voice had to stop until I could perceive. (That’s how I know it’s a holy work He’s producing in me! Y’all KNOW my husband can attest, that ain’t always the case!!! HA)
He is my Shepherd, I am his sheep, and I know his voice. He’s trained me to discern the times and what he is doing in the midst of external circumstances. Even when it requires a longer gaze.
I used to receive my ‘word of the year’ around October for the following Gregorian calendar year after first learning the practice from Jennie Allen at the IF:Gathering somewhere around February of 2017. She invited to ask God for our word and to write it on a little container of Playdoh. The idea was to remember that He is the potter, we are the clay, and our word would be the prophetic declaration of a clue as to how he wanted to mold or transform that year in a specific way. The practice of this has been such a blessing.
In 2021, I started seeing God use the Hebrew calendar in our relationship and communion. It shifted the time that ‘the word of the year’ came. At the turn of 5784, last September, I was upset about some unfair redirections and dead ends. Unsure of what and where I needed to be, I knew I was STILL in a transitional season. A season that had started many years prior. 2020 to be exact. Read more about that here: https://brookeburch.net/about/.
God told me 5784 would be a year to ‘Occupy’. To hold ground, to go in and take up space, to claim territory. I understood this to mean spiritually, relationally and in regards to community. I made extra room within my life and attention for those I could reach out and touch. I allowed God to redeem areas of my life I let be dormant. I also physically went and took up space in events, parks, church, school, and businesses. All the while, throughout the year, so many thoughts and ideas of projects, missions and commissions left undone have continued to stir in my spirit.
Just as God told me to linger with Him and wait for rejoicing and relishing the season that was not yet here in order to glean all that can be gleaned in this current season, He also made it clear that I was to OCCUPY and take up space, to hold the ground, but NOT to take up arms and take action. In other words, all of these thoughts and ideas swimming in my head, eagerly anticipating a release as an act of worship, to stack up as trophies that I am who God says I am, it was still ‘not yet’ time.
God does not want your performance before He’s given you the provision. Right now you’re caught up in producing OR harvesting before the fruit is ripe. Take your hands off it. Take your mind off it. Make yourself at home in the presence of your King before the burnt offering. Delight in Him, rejoice in Him, worship Him. Your access to Him, and all that is yours in Him, is not through accolades or achievement. Everything he has is yours only through Jesus.
‘At the right time, I the LORD will make it happen.’ Isaiah 60:22
God is orderly. He demands order. He is the creator of order, of everything. He knows how and when to call things in to being. By trying to stretch ahead you are putting things OUT OF ORDER! And you wonder why it’s not working. There’s a kink in your system. If your mind is swirling with all of these random thoughts, and you’re feeling disorganized, defective and conflicted – hold on. Go back to the giver.
It’s easy to plant something in faith and be discouraged by the perceived nothingness on the surface while you wait. It can make you feel utterly restless.
What He is asking is to remain in His rest. Or rather, rest in HIS work! His FINISHED work. It is a supernatural, mysterious and entirely necessary thing to rest in His sufficiency, sovereignty and sustenance. It is the undoing of pride and the admission that no matter how impressive and diligent you are at your work, it is meaningless and futile unless you leave Him room to do what only He can do.
Resting in Him is leaving margin for Him to come and multiply and give meaning to the work of your hands. It’s so important, He commands us to do it every week. Remember Sabbath? Work 6, rest 1? And there are also longer seasons for waiting on the right moment. To rely on HIS action in our inaction. We can see this when the Israelites circled in the desert until just the right moment. Until God was done with His handiwork in them that made them able and ready to go and take the land.
The stirring in my head to produce all of these things came to a boiling point when I was in worship and in the Word. God said it was time and I was the person for this work.
‘And on that day’ “-this is God’s Message-“‘I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I’ve looked over the field and chosen you for this work.'” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’ from Haggai 2:21-23 MSG
And so, I’ve been anxiously struggling, trying to find the right moments where the anointing and appointing lines up and agrees, when God calls to mind…pumpkins. In other words, not yet. And then I remember there was recently this moment, after the absolute blessing of seeing an Anne Wilson concert with my teenage daughter, when the ‘go home’ lights came on and the auditorium was busy with everyone shuffling their way out, and the fog machine smoke still filled the room and I heard Him again …linger… Linger with me and praise me for the way MY hands orchestrated all of this and called it into being. Delight in my gifts over you, for you. Linger with me in my presence.
Take this message, LORD, and seal it in the courts of Heaven, that it may not be removed from me and all you choose to receive it. Amen.
