The God of All My Seasons
Every year since 2017, I approach August with a heart full of thanksgiving. I reflect on the summer I had an unshakable, gut-wrenching, yet life-altering realization that my mouth had said one thing about God, but my heart had believed another.
That the God of my mother and father, the One they served and taught me to serve, was not truly my Lord. That I had made everything else my lord, including myself, yet still joined the saints to say, “Jesus is Lord.” That I believed in the existence of a God who made the heavens, the earth, and everything in it, but I cared very little about the desires of His heart or His whole counsel.
On a random sunny day in August 2017, after an afternoon of blasting songs that glorified lust, profanity, violence, drugs, pride, and everything unlike God, I came across a YouTube video. In it, a lady was making a case for why Christians shouldn’t be listening to secular music. I’ve searched for it since and haven’t been able to find it again, but the timing was impeccable.
I had seen variations of that video before and skipped every one of them. Deep down, even with the little I knew of God, I was certain those songs didn’t bring Him joy.
For some supernatural reason, I watched that particular video till the end. And then John 16:8 became my reality. I was convicted of my sin. Convicted of how far away my heart, and by extension my life, was from God.
And I had to make a decision there and then: either I believe that God is real and begin to live like it, or I continue living on my own terms and disregard the existence of a God who rules over the affairs of men.
I had seen enough to know that there is a God, so I was left with only one choice: to serve Him with my whole life.
That evening, I took my first step in that direction. I opened Apple Music and deleted every song that didn’t point me to Jesus in worship. Music has meant the world to me since childhood. I genuinely enjoy being a consumer of music, and I especially loved the songs I used to listen to. They made me so happy. So you should understand just how great a deliverance this was.
Two years later, when God asked me to delete a playlist of “clean Nigerian songs” I had curated, because they puffed me up and because parts of my identity and confidence were rooted in them, I cried. That puts it simply, I wept.
“You wept over a playlist?” It was more than that.
The songs I let go of in 2017 and again in 2019, and the loss I felt in those moments, were reminders of the great cost of choosing to follow Jesus. For someone else, the crosses they carry may be different. I’ve had to sever ties with things and people along the way. I’ve had to wrestle with my flesh and its desires. There have been private nights when I asked Him to help me love Him, to be faithful, to be true.
There are days when I struggle to comprehend the love of God. Days when I’m tempted to believe the lie that life in ‘Egypt’ was better than life here. But on those days, I remember this: nothing, absolutely nothing, surpasses the delight found in Jesus. The joy in my heart bears witness to the darkness He rescued me from. His word keeps reminding me that He is better than the best thing life could ever offer.
That day in August was the last day I lived for myself. The last time I treated my life like it was mine to do with as I pleased. Because on that day, I handed it over to its rightful Owner. I surrendered my time, my emotions, my resources, my body, my mind, my desires, my affections, my attention. On that day, a crucifixion took place and a resurrection followed. It took Jesus three days so that it could take me a moment.
And every day since that moment, I have known my God. He has walked with me through the valleys and the highlands, and He has been mine and I His.
In year one, I experienced Him as Saviour.
In year two, He was my Comforter.
In year three, my patient Rabbi.
In year four, the One who sees me.
In year five, my Exceeding Reward.
In year six, my Helper.
In year seven, my Deliverer.
And in year eight, the One who comes and stays close.
My only wise and all-powerful God, the Custodian of my soul, the God of all my seasons, You have beautified my life. I will never treat as ordinary the great work You have done in me.
My Merciful Restorer, You have restored years of heartache and brokenness, and You have made me whole.
And because I know that the greatest “thank You” I can offer for all Your kindness is a life well lived, this life — every part of it — will be lived for Your glory, Your honour, and Your joy.
