Seasons of Preparation: Lessons from a Jalapeño Plant

Over the summer, I was given a jalapeño plant. It was just a small seedling with a few leaves. I had read that jalapeño plants typically won’t produce jalapeños when it’s above 90 degrees. Because I live in Texas, I went into that summer with pretty low expectations for the plant. However, I still watered it twice a week and kept repotting it as it grew, which it did fast! We had a few near misses with it, as the plant toppled over a few times on windy days. I had to start using a large rock to prop up the stem. 

Once it dropped below 80, then 70, I started losing hope for it, but I continued to nurture it. The plants around it continued to bloom, but this one still hadn’t produced any jalapeños. It seemed to want to produce them–it still flowered and tried to grow. But once the flowers opened that would eventually turn into the vegetable, they would shrivel up and fall off. But then one day, when it had dropped to 39 degrees one morning, I noticed two small jalapeños finally breaking through the flowering. 

This plant that I had raised from a little seedling had taken all summer absorbing nutrients, growing tall, and watching the other plants around it flourish had finally had its turn. When the conditions were right and it had done all the preparation it could do, it finally bloomed.

A Season of Preparation

I often feel like this jalapeño plant, watching others around me bloom, yet I’m still waiting for my time in the sun. Just like anyone else, I have dreams and passions, talents and goals. But they have yet to gain traction or turn into something that makes sense.

With my writing, I often feel like I’m behind. I see other people writing book proposals, publishing award-winning books, gaining traction to their blogs, and gaining Instagram followers… All while I’m sitting at home barely finding time to write between taking care of my home and my infant. Let me be clear here: I’m truly not saying this to complain. I absolutely love my life and my child. However, it’s a real tension to feel like it’s not your turn yet but desperately wanting it to be.

Have you felt this tension before? Like you are nurturing your talents and stewarding your giftings well, yet you still feel like it isn’t your turn?

Do you often feel like you’ve been in a perpetual season of waiting?

Are you desperate for your time in the sun, but keep being pushed into the shade?

Maybe you are finding yourself in what I like to call a season of preparation. 

Seasons of Preparation

A season of preparation is the season of life where God is inviting you to absorb, grow, and gain knowledge until the conditions are right for you to bloom. It’s a time where we are preparing the field, spreading seeds within ourselves, and waiting until the sun comes from behind the clouds, beckoning us into flourishing. This is a season imperative to the Christian life, but we often don’t take advantage of it. We treat it like another season of waiting. 

But what if I told you that your season of waiting is also a season of preparation in disguise?

Both seasons of waiting and seasons of preparation ask us to be patient while God is making the way for us. Both require us to trust that God has us right where we are for a purpose. And both seasons invite us into present-moment living and intentionality. 

But seasons of preparation ask us to go deeper yet. Seasons of preparation invite us to pull up a chair and welcome the opportunities to absorb the ways God is moving around and within us. Preparation seasons ask us to focus on how we can be preparing ourselves for where we want or sense God is asking us to go. These seasons can be life changing if embraced properly, yet painful if embraced with bitterness or unwillingness to grow. Or worse yet–preparing for something that God isn’t calling you or leading you into at all.

I like to think of seasons of preparation as God preparing, equipping, and making ready our hearts for what he is calling us into.

Prepare to Flourish

Just like the jalapeño plant continued to grow tall during its preparation for flourishing, God is calling us to do the same. He is calling us to absorb what He has to teach us right here and now. He is inviting us into deeper communion with Him so we can be equipped and prepared for what He has next for us on our journey.

I want to be clear that this season of preparation is not one that is without flourishing in itself. Even the jalapeño plant grew flowers before it grew the jalapeños. But those flowers were not ready to hold the jalapeños so they shriveled. We are the same. God will not allow us to hold what we are not ready to steward well.

Think about that job opportunity you really want. Will God give it to you if you are not yet able to steward that gift well?

What about that book you want to write? God will not give you the book deal if you’re not able to embody the message in your very being. And hey- maybe you haven’t yet experienced what God is wanting your book to be about!

For myself, I’ve written a few blog posts on my old site that gained a little traction. But looking back, God stopped the traction and growth on my blog and social media platforms because I wasn’t ready to steward them well yet. I had yet to become the person God was calling me to be. My heart wasn’t in the right place, and I was too focused on the numbers and followers. I needed a season of preparation to set myself right with God and to absorb the nutrients I would need when my time of blooming did come.

Preparing, Equipping, and Making Ready

Sometimes it’s a bitter pill to swallow that what we’re walking through is a season of preparation. It can be difficult to see within ourselves what needs to change so that we can better steward the things God is calling us into. Oftentimes, God will take away what we think we need most so we can realize that all we need is him. It’s only through him that we’re able to flourish into the best versions of ourselves.

I like to think of seasons of preparation as God preparing, equipping, and making ready our hearts for what he is calling us into. But how do we do that? How can we be faithful in this journey toward personal growth and nurturing?

Here are a few ways that we can open our hearts to what God has for us in seasons of preparation:

Pray that God would reveal the areas in your life that need the most attention.

Have you ever thought about the fact that God wants you to grow so that you can walk into his calling for your life? Ask God what areas of your life need the most attention, and write them down. This exercise may be painful, but it will be helpful toward your growth during this season of preparation. Once God reveals these areas, ask him to reveal ways that you can grow in them.

Find and absorb resources that will act as nutrients for your blooming.

There are numerous resources out there that can help you on your journey. I’ve been absorbing books that speak into the season I’m currently living in, as well as resources that help guide me on my writing journey. What resources are out there that can act as nutrients for you right now?

Focus on your relationship with God first during this season.

During seasons of preparation it can be easy to try to escape, look to others for comfort, or compare ourselves to others and their progress. Instead of looking for an escape, lean into God during this time. Your relationship with God during trying seasons will greatly impact how you leave this season and venture onto the next. Look to God first and trust that he has you here for a purpose.

Discern whether your dreams are his dreams.

Are the dreams that you have in your heart stemming from your own wants and desires or are they truly from God? Practice discernment in this area and test the spirits to know what is of God and what is of your own making. This will take prayer, confiding in others, and deep self-awareness. Take your time as you discern God’s plans for you.

Your time will come. Just like the jalapeño plant sitting out on my patio, now growing several jalapeños, a time of preparation was necessary for its eventual prospering. For now, use this time to learn, ask questions, absorb, and rest. Your time to bloom is coming.