When Life Looks Quiet and Full of Question Marks

“I’m in a season of suffering” “I’m in a season of new things”
“I feel like I’m going through a storm during this time of life”
“I like this season I’m in right now” “I don’t like this season of my life at all and I don’t see how it can be good”

These all may be phrases that you have heard or may have said yourself. I always found it interesting that we compare to how life may be feeling to us as “seasons”. We see the change taking place in ourselves and the circumstances around us to come and go the same way that Fall becomes Winter. It’s easier to constantly be dependent on God in seasons of suffering, and seasons of challenges or new things. But what do you do when things around you are just quiet? How do you depend on God when your world isn’t being shattered, or amazing, unbelievable things aren’t happening and some days just seem, well boring. You go about your day and watch everyone around you have exciting lives. Fall in love, find jobs, get married, and be given incredible opportunities. And you feel like your life is in “pause” mode and it’s almost like in every aspect of life, you’re in the “waiting” season.

Sure, you’ve had your good days and your days where things happened that were a disappointment but otherwise things are just kinda quiet. I have learned lately though that in the more quiet moments of life, we don’t need to let our heart sit on pause just because the world around us feels like it is. I have learned that even though on the outside things aren’t really moving in any directions, we have a choice to let things move in big ways on the inside. We have a choice to come to God and ask Him to work in us and reveal things to us. To pick up books we’ve never read before, to be challenged by believers around us and to open up His Word every day willing to learn something we haven’t before or to remind ourselves of things we need to hear everyday.

See, as this semester comes to a close and I look back on how I felt going into the semester, I honestly thought life would have gotten a little louder by now, but it hasn’t. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do after I graduate and I haven’t been through any trials really lately that pushed me in my faith. I feel like as we get older and reach this point in life of being a twenty-something, we often expect things in life to go moving on full speed ahead and ride this roller coaster up and down and around again. At this point in my life though, I feel like this roller coaster is just puttering along. I try to think about what lies ahead in the next year, and all I see is one big giant question mark. And I’m learning lately that that’s okay.

Because quiet and question marks have allowed my life to be loud in a different way. Throughout this semester, I have been humbled and discovered weaknesses in myself that I didn’t know I even had and I have grown in strengths that I thought didn’t need any more growing. I have learned how to find joy in the everyday and even in the boring. As my eyes were opened to the junk in my heart that needed to be worked at, I realized more how incredible it is that Christ paid the price that I deserve to pay and I became more aware of the freedom that I can have because of him. Although my first semester of my senior year didn’t really change in the really big ways that you typically think of (finding jobs, traveling, finding love). I am grateful for the quiet. And as crazy as it sounds, I am even thankful for the lessons on patience that are needed throughout my life. I am very thankful that God knows that we need times like this. Time to dig deeper, time to learn to not base our faith off of exciting things or difficult things and instead let our faith be rooted in who God is and what He has done for us through His Son, Jesus. And that is never changing and remains steady.

And the gravity of what His Son Jesus, did for you and me? is so so SO far from boring.

So know that if you are in a point of life were things are kind of quiet or you feel like you’ve been in this season of “waiting” that you don’t need to just sit there and float through your day. Know that this time of quiet, is also a time for growth as much as the times of trials and obvious challenges are. When you ask God to show you areas in your heart and life that need some chiseling, you will be challenged. And it really is incredible when you allow Him to show you those things.

Here are some verses and passages that I have found helpful to memorize and look over during this quiet time of life to help me stay focused on God and serving Him and others:
1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18
Colossians 3: 1-17
Philippians 4:6-8
Philippians 2: 1-8

I hope that this could encourage you today and remind you that the times of quiet and question marks are valuable and if you let them, they can teach you a whole lot even if nothing obvious on the outside is going on.