I often think about a quote of C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity, he said “pain and suffering are the megaphone to the heart of man”, he concludes with this quote after an exegesis on how we don’t hear the same way when we’re on the mountain top and when we’re down in the valley.

Something in me tried to resist it the first time I read it, I was convincing myself that God wants us to get to that place where we see and feel the same away about Him, whether on the mountain top or in the valley, and something just refuted the finality of Lewis words, but in the last couple of weeks and months, I seem to understand this even more, despite reading the book over five years ago.

I thought about David and Solomon, two of a few kings who the bible records God gave rest on every side, even though David’s was shorter lived. Every time I read through the books of the kings and chronicles, I see that same pattern of rest and right after, laxity and subsequently decay, before repentance, restitution and then God forgiving (as always).

I began to probe in my mind whether seasons of rest are the problem or the heart of man.

It didn’t help that a couple of days when this thoughts went off in my heart, a friend of mine reached out sharing her heart of same concerns and wanting to hear my thoughts. We shared our concerns for ‘the weakness’ we were seeing in the church, among believers, evidenced in shallowness, frailness and a delicateness in our sturdiness, rootedness and general display of our faith. All evidenced in everyday language like “let everyone live their lives”, “who are we to judge”, “let the person without sin cast the first stone”…

I remember sending her a voice note and sharing with her how the believer of today is in no way challenged as the believer of yesterday, At least in this part of the world; there’s no threat to life or living for reading the word or attending church, there’s no execution sentence right after you confess your acceptance of Jesus, and there’s no exclusion or separation from family and friends on account of belief in Jesus, like we see in the times of old.

I wondered if the weakness grew as our battles grew fewer, but in the same breath, I also wondered if our battles grew fewer or if we just became more complacent to them. The elimination of the aforementioned problems shouldn’t foster weakness, or so I thought.

The average believers concerns centre around themselves; their family and the things right within their circle of influence. There’s less concern for the larger, bigger body or world, which really is what we see in the drive among the first set of believers and those after. While they catered for one another, there was the awareness that the bigger fish were those yet to enter the fold, but beyond that, grow within the fold.

My friend and I exchanged dilemmas, trying to understand if it’s the season of respite that has got us here or if truly, life just got easier…

Over the next couple of weeks since then, the Holy Spirit has shown me examples from the word of what respite and ease can do to the heart of any man, making Lewis words very true. So I wondered, “do we declare war on seasons of rest and ease?”

Definitely not.

But you see, the dispensation we’re in gives the average believer more time and capacity to intercede for the global church and world, and also grow in capacity in the things of the spirit. Because of the seeming ease and respite we have in these times, we should see more of Gods power and experience more of His tangible presence. It seems our satisfaction tanks reduced with greater seasons of rest, and I doubt that God intended it to be so.

The more weakness we welcome into the body through our unintentional selfishness, the less room we give for our spirit man to grow and experience God in the way He desires for us to. The Israelites cycle of captivity – slavery – repentance – forgiveness – freedom and back to captivity again is acute evidence of the flesh still at work in us.

We don’t have to end up in slavery to repent over and over again, we can choose to live and walk in the liberty of life that Jesus gave us while also intentionally covering our brothers and sisters still in seasons of captivity and slavery, but it seems that the ease of the blood of Jesus has made us comfortable with this cycle.

One of the earliest books I read after I got saved, challenged me to intercession by asking me “if every word of prayer I’ve prayed got answered right now, how many lives/nations will be changed?”

If the answer to that can be listed and centres around you and your family, that’s your evidence that there’s work to do.

In catering to the weakness of our time, we create allowances for complacency and lackadaisical approaches to the things of God, and that truly worries my heart because I ask myself, “what God will be pass on to the next generation?”

And I think it should be a question in the heart of you and l daily, that the experiences and lives we live in God, will end up as a resource in the life of the coming generation, what about God will they see/know?

Will they know Him only as a source for food, houses, jobs and material gains? Or will they know Him in His totality? Even beyond a source who provides.

I hope we open our eyes and hearts to see just how much our experiences of God shape our understanding of Him and what we will tell others about Him, and if in our weakness, we reduce His acts in our life to one element, it will be unfair to tell another generation of that one element only when there were several that we were too selfish to experience.

All this to say; wake up my brother and sister, historically as Christian’s, we’re in seasons of rest on all sides, but for a greater cause and we should plug into making this cause a reality.