Do not miss the season of your visitation

The last part of the passage in Luke 19:28-48 speaks of Jesus weeping over the city because they did not know the time of their visitation. In the same city where people cried out with a loud voice “Saying, blessed be the king that comes in the name of the Lord”, they cry out “crucify Him, crucify Him” a few chapters ahead.  I believe that Jesus visits us daily and that it is possible to miss the season of your visitation. Even after you have received Christ as your Lord and personal savior, there are seasons God has ordained in your life to transform you and take you deeper and deeper in love with Him. It is no doubt to me that salvation is the biggest visitation of God is our lives. It would be good to consider how many in our days are missing that visitation. And before we start pointing fingers, I also believe that we miss Gods voice daily. God speaks in our hearts with a still small voice. Maybe because this voice is so soft and so gentle, we can easily miss it. God also speaks through people and each time God speaks, there is a potential that great things can change in our lives. If we miss the reason for a season in our lives, we may never get the scenario back exactly the same way God intended it to be.  A sermon series in a church can be a season of God’s visitation that can usher in tremendous blessings in your life. We have to be alert to what God is saying and what He is doing in our lives. One way of doing that is meditating on any word you receive as a personal word for you and not as a word for somebody else.  Life comes in seasons as the bible says in the book of Ecclesiastes ‘there is a season for everything under the sun’. What season are you going through right now? Are going through a stormy season or a season of increase and great joy? Even a stormy season has its purpose. A season of brokenness has its purpose and as Pastor Len puts it, when we understand the purpose of brokenness in our lives, we understand that out of a season of brokenness may come some of the greatest transformation in our life.  The example of the eagle that goes through a season of transformation through brokenness as its strength is rejuvenated speaks for itself. So do not miss the season of your visitation.

One very important season in my life was when I missed to graduate from the University in Cameroon in 2001. I was depressed and sad. I had no idea what the reason for that season was. Then came a Pastor’s wife and asked me to register for bible school. I wondered briefly what that would yield. I thank God I was obedient and went to that Bible school because a season of depression became a season of understanding God as I had never done before. That was the period in my life when I became stable in the faith. My life has never been the same again. I began ministering to other and went as far as ministering to prisoners. Before that season was over, I met my beautiful wife who has been my best friend ever since. So let us consider the situation and see what I lost and what I gained. I missed to graduate, registered in a bible school, became stable in the faith, had understanding of my calling and ministry and met my wife. I also took more courses at the university and graduated with excellence as the best in my department in the following year. So if I had not listened to the voice of God leading me to the bible school I would have missed all of that and just had graduated and nothing else. So because God had prepared me already, it was possible to become a pastor in the International Bible Fellowship in Lund, Sweden, where I went to pursue my education. The fact is that if you miss the season of your visitation, you may never realize what you have missed. The scenario may never come back again exactly as God intended for you. So do not miss the season of your visitation. What you see as a storm is a season for God to take you through what you could never learn by reading and give you an experience that would last a life time. So rejoice in your storm and let God transform you in the process and bring you out of it refined like silver or gold. Purified by the fire of the situation and reflecting his glory at the end of the process. God loves you and would visit you so do not miss the season of your visitation!

Adalbert Tanyi