There are seasons in life and ministry when God plants you somewhere, and the roots begin to grow deep.
You begin to know the people. You learn the culture. You build relationships. You laugh together, hurt together, serve together, pray together, and watch God work in ways you never could have planned.
And then sometimes, the season changes.
Maybe God moves you to another place. Maybe He moves you from one church to another. Maybe the ministry changes. Maybe the role changes. Maybe the people around you change. Sometimes you know exactly why God is doing it, and sometimes you have absolutely no idea.
One of the hardest things I’ve learned over the years is this:
Being faithful to a season does not mean that season will never change.
When we first came to Romania, we started in Sântandrei. Later, ministry took us six hours east to Brașov. Then another season brought us back west again. Different places, different churches, different people, and different assignments.
Looking back, every one of those seasons mattered, but none of them stayed exactly the same forever. That can be hard.
We like knowing what comes next. We like getting settled. We like getting comfortable enough to finally say, “Okay, I understand what God is doing here.” And then sometimes God says, “Follow Me again.”
Every time God plants us somewhere, roots begin to grow, especially in ministry.
You invest in people. You walk through life with them. You watch kids grow up. You celebrate victories together. You sit beside people in difficult moments. You pour your heart into churches, communities, families, and individuals.
Those things become part of you, so when a season changes, it can hurt.
You don’t pull a tree out of the ground after years of growth without disturbing some soil. Some roots are deeper than you realized. Some pieces stay behind, and some of that soil gets carried with you wherever God takes you next.
That doesn’t mean something went wrong. It means it mattered.
I think sometimes Christians—especially pastors, missionaries, preachers, teachers, and ministry leaders—can feel like we’re supposed to have everything together.
We preach faith. We teach faith. We encourage other people to trust God. And then we find ourselves in a season where we’re the ones struggling to see what God is doing.
We get tired. We get overwhelmed. We get nervous. We wonder what comes next.
We have family struggles, ministry struggles, financial pressures, health concerns, aging parents, hurting children, relationships that change, and plans that don’t work out the way we thought they would. And sometimes it all hits at once.
I’ve said for years that Satan’s weapon of mass destruction is deception, because if he can deceive you, he can isolate you.
He’ll tell you everybody else is doing fine. Everybody else’s family has it together. Everybody else’s ministry is thriving. Every other missionary is strong. Every other pastor knows exactly what he’s doing. Everybody else has faith.
And somehow, you’re the only one struggling.
That’s a lie.
Some of the strongest people you know are carrying things you know nothing about.
Some of the people preaching faith on Sunday morning had to fight just to hold onto theirs Saturday night. Some missionaries smiling in pictures from the mission field have cried behind closed doors. Some pastors encouraging everybody else are exhausted themselves. Some parents who are praying for other people’s children are desperately praying for their own.
Faith does not mean we stop being human. Faith does not mean we never hurt. Faith does not mean we are never scared. And faith definitely does not mean that we understand everything God is doing.
Sometimes faith looks a whole lot less like confidently marching down a clearly marked road and a whole lot more like taking one step at a time when you can barely see what is ahead.
That’s probably one of the best ways I can describe some seasons of following God.
It feels like walking a trail when you can only see a few feet in front of you. You know there is a path. You know the One who is leading you. But you cannot see around the next bend.
We want God to give us the map. We want Him to show us where we’ll be a year from now. We want the explanation. We want the details. We want the assurance that everything is going to work exactly the way we hope.
And many times, God simply says, “Trust Me. Take the next step.”
Hebrews 11:8 says that Abraham obeyed God and went out, “not knowing where he was going.”
Think about that. He obeyed before he had all the details.
That wasn’t blind faith in the sense that Abraham had no reason to trust. He knew the One who was calling him, and there is a difference.
Faith is not trusting a road you cannot see. Faith is trusting the God who can see the entire road.
Sometimes He plants us. Sometimes He moves us. Sometimes He changes the assignment. Sometimes He closes a door we thought would remain open. Sometimes He opens one we never expected.
And sometimes He allows us to sit in that uncomfortable space between what was and what will be.
That space can be difficult. It can also be holy.
Because there are moments when all the things we normally lean on are stripped away, and we have to decide whether knowing God is enough when we don’t know everything else.
Maybe you’re in one of those seasons right now.
Maybe something that once felt permanent is changing. Maybe God is moving you from something good into something you don’t understand yet. Maybe you’re grieving one season while trying to have faith for the next.
Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’re scared. Maybe you’re asking God questions you thought someone with “strong faith” wasn’t supposed to ask.
Ask them. Cry out to Him. Be honest with Him.
David was.
The Psalms are filled with the cries of a man who deeply trusted God and still had moments when he hurt, questioned, grieved, and wondered where God was.
Your struggle does not automatically mean your faith is weak. Sometimes the struggle is exactly where faith is being exercised.
So pray for your missionaries. Pray for your pastors. Pray for ministry leaders. Pray for the people who seem like they are always pouring into everyone else.
And when God brings someone to your mind, don’t assume they’re doing fine just because they haven’t told you otherwise.
Send the message. Make the phone call. Say the prayer. Encourage them.
Sometimes the person reminding everyone else to keep going needs someone to remind them too.
And if you’re the one walking through a season of change right now, don’t confuse change with failure. Don’t confuse grief with a lack of faith. And don’t confuse the ending of one season with God being finished with you.
You may not know what is around the next bend. You may not understand why God is moving certain pieces. You may not see how everything is going to come together.
That’s okay.
You don’t have to see the whole road to take the next step.
Know His Word. Trust His will. Keep walking.
Sometimes we are planted. Sometimes we are uprooted. Sometimes we’re carrying a little dirt from the last place and wondering exactly where God is going to plant us next.
But through every season, the invitation remains the same:
Follow Me.
Rooted. Uprooted. Unsure of everything ahead.
But still following.