Quiet Time in Austria

After starting in Germany, I continued on to spend two weeks in Austria. I was immediately fascinated with the beauty of the mountains, and the colors of the changing leaves across the mountainsides. The view from my hotel window was a front row seat to watch the stillness of the mountains and the transitioning of the seasons. I didn’t recognize it at first, but within my hotel room changes would be made in me as well.

All of my time in Austria was spent alone. Unlike in Germany, I did not find a local church to spend time in, which left little opportunity to find community or connection with anyone. This wasn’t as difficult for me as I would have thought. I actually enjoyed the still and quiet most of the time. However, after a while I began to struggle with feeling a lack of purpose. I am the type to be task-driven, and for this stretch of time I had no boxes to check. This left a space that made me uncomfortable, though it turned out to be beneficial.

The leaves on the trees outside were dying to mark the movement of seasons, and inside me parts of my flesh, my ways of being, were dying in preparation for and in response to my own movement. I didn’t see it all or understand at first, and the silence and stillness began to feel like intense pressure. Fighting off discouragement became more difficult. The best I could manage to do in this was to continue sitting still, waiting and trusting God to speak or show me what I was missing.

In the midst of this process, God was moving in other ways that reassured me I was where I should be. When I made arrangements to stay in Austria, I started to have concerns about my finances. I understand that the path I am on requires complete trust in the Lord in this area, but the practice of that can be challenging at first. My concern was not that God would not provide my needs, but it was for my capacity to misstep. I asked God for some kind of sign that I was moving rightly. I wanted some kind of large financial contribution- no specific number, but large enough for me to know. After this exchange, I put the subject out of my mind.

Shortly after arriving in Austria, I bought some groceries, and as I walked back to the hotel these concerns came up in me again. I stilled my heart and surrendered it all again, concluding with, “I trust You Jesus.” As I finished speaking this, I got a bank notification of a deposit that was big enough that I knew it was my sign. Thank You Father!

The internal pressures I was feeling came to a head as I made preparations to leave Austria. I was afraid of doing the wrong thing, and I had some difficulties with those preparations that made me feel totally incapable and quite discouraged. Thank God that within a couple hours of this, I received two encouraging calls from close friends and co-laborers in Christ. As I shared with them the difficulties, I understood that this was resistance from the enemy to keep me from moving forward, and that it was only effective if I allow it to be. By the end, I was no longer discouraged by my weakness, but encouraged in the Lord! It is good for me to be reminded that I am in need of the Holy Spirit always. The Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

The next morning, hope was added to encouragement with the sight of the first snow on the mountain tops. The moment I saw it, I recognized the that the pressures I had felt, being pushed out of my usual modes of being, were working to make way for the new things to come, like the falling of the dying leaves marked time for the first snow.

I am grateful for God, my potter, and that it is He shapes me so in His wisdom. It isn’t my job to figure out what God wants me to be and then work at that. I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit as He draws me nearer to God my Father. My job is to surrender fully to the hands of my potter to be molded by Him without my own reservations or expectations.

Isaiah 64:8 But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

Romans 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”