God’s Grace in Changing Seasons with Andrea Burke
Today, we get to hear from Andrea Burke on the topic of God’s grace in the changing seasons. We pray this episode with Andrea presses you to rest in the work God is doing in you—whatever that looks like for you in this season.
NOTES & QUOTES
“The more I work the ground, the more it just smacks me in the face how much the Lord wants to teach us through creation. Romans tells us that that's one of the ways he reveals himself, right? It’s through creation.” (Rom. 1:19-20)
“It just hits you when you see what the Lord does, what he's written on creation, what he's written in the design of the way he built this world. You can't ignore it.”
“It's been a mercy of God to exhaust myself in the garden because it's really where he's also working in my life.”
“Knowing that there are seasons… realizing that nothing is fruitful all year. It's just not possible. And no garden bed can produce infinitely. You need to let it rest. You need to give it time.”
“Working in those seasons here were constant reminders to me that my life also works in seasons. It might not look like that in a calendar year. It might not be that obvious. But if I'm willing to trust that the Lord is the gardener in my life, the Lord is the one tending to the soil in my heart and working with the Holy Spirit in my life, then I can submit to the changing seasons knowing that no season is forever—both good and bad—and I can trust him in that season with whatever he is doing in my life and be an active participant in it.”
“There are things I can do to be intentional about taking care of the soil of my heart, to be aware of the work the Lord is doing in me. I tend to only want the next season. I want what's next. I want to come to the fruitfulness. I want to be in the abundance season. I want to be in that place, when actually the work is happening now. But if I just want to be in a forever-July, if I just want to be harvesting all year, I'm going to miss what the Lord's trying to teach me in my own quiet seasons or hard seasons.”
“In a season of rest the Lord is reminding me, ‘You can't earn this. You can't work hard enough to get to where you want to be. This is all me. All the fruitfulness and the rest, this is all the work that I'm doing.’”
“Trying to grow roots for me looks like intentional reflection on the gospel, intentional reflection on what's true. Remembering I can't earn it.”
“That quiet, that pulling back is the kindness of the Lord. He is the one who doesn't slumber, not us. So we need to realize that, we need to even submit to that. We can't do this forever at this pace. Not every season is a fruitful season and that's okay.”
“There’s not any extra holiness achieved by burning yourself out. I think the Lord is patient, and we are not patient with ourselves or patient with the work the Lord is doing in us. I want to be so much farther along than I am in my fruitfulness or my walk with the Lord or what I'm doing. The Lord has the long view in mind, and I don't always. We need to trust him with that long view, to know that he can slow us down and we're not losing anything. We're not losing ground, we're not losing effectiveness or fruitfulness. There really is something that has to happen to the work in our hearts. Even when I'm planting seeds, you have to wait for that seed to grow, for roots to come out of the seed, for it to come out of the ground, you have to be gentle with it. And the Lord is like that with us, but we just want to be strong and fruitful right away.”
“A lot of our walk with the Lord—the work we do every day if you're raising kids or going to your job—a lot of it is redundant, faithful work. And the lie is that that's the boring stuff and we just need to get it over with. But in the seasons of waiting, whether in the garden or actually in my life, that's where the Lord is teaching me that this is actually where the faithful work is happening.”
“I have a disease that reminds me that my body is failing, and it will continue to fail until I go home. And those things are mercies of God in my life to keep me before him.”
“Even in the work of gardening, witnessing death is a humbling reminder that this doesn't last forever. None of this does. And it keeps us remembering why we do what we do.”
“Sin is not passive. It doesn't just go away and come back another time. It's aggressive. And it only causes more damage as it grows. The best chance I have of having the least amount of damage is to address it as soon as I see it.”
“I often tend to think that I am the vinedresser in my own life, that I need to stay on top of it, that I need to do the work. And I do, I'm an active participant in my faith. However, Scripture tells us God is the vinedresser. He is the one with the pruning shears. He is the one taking care of his growth. He is the one who brings the growth. And knowing that he will finish the work that he started in me, not because I somehow proved to him that I worked hard enough, but because he's faithful.”
“He is the one who planted the seed. He will do the work, and he might bring death to things in seasons that we don't expect. He might bring death to things in our lives… But we need to trust the hand of the vinedresser who cares tenderly for the thing that he's growing. He's not careless out in the field. He is so precise and so near to the thing that he is working on because he loves it and he wants it to be fruitful—even more than I want something to be fruitful. He wants to bring fruitfulness. And so I need to trust the work of his hand in my life.”
“What does it look like for us to live as believers in the seasons we're in, slowly, patiently, redundantly, enjoying the things the Lord has given us? And how can those things draw us closer to him and help us to live in the world but not be of the world?”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How have you seen the Lord’s kindness to you in seasons of rest or seasons of death in your own life? Explain.
How have you sought to “grow roots” in seasons of rest or fruitlessness?
Are there areas of sin in your life that you need to “weed out” with the help of the Lord? What step might you be able to take today to do that?
How does viewing God as the vinedresser give you permission to submit to the work that he is doing in you right now?
What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?
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IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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