Season 5 Timing: Suspended Development

Delay does not mean denial. Take a queue from the Trees and the Bear Family!

In this episode of Vision in the Valley, the core discussion revolves around the concept of diapause—a period of suspended development in animals, particularly focusing on bears and their hibernation. This biological phenomenon is used as a metaphor for spiritual growth and waiting for God's timing. I draw parallels to the dormancy of trees and the story of Jonah to illustrate how periods of pause can lead to greater success and fulfillment of God's promises. The episode underscores the importance of patience, trust in divine timing, and continuous praise, even during life's dormant phases.

Transcript

Welcome back to Vision in the Valley. I thank you for following me and I thank you for listening. I'm thankful that you are sharing these episodes with your family and your friends. I can see it in the numbers and I'm thankful that we are remaining teachable. So that we can grow together and learn and, and, and learn from even the most routine of things.

So I wanted to start this episode out by talking about one of my favorite things. If you are a regular listener, you know that I love nature. In fact, I often infuse my love for nature in some of the episodes just to give you a tangible experience to my newly found revelations.  I talked about the hibernation of bears a few seasons ago, and it's just fascinating to me that some of the animals go through a dormancy stage.

This dormancy is just one version of suspended animation.  This is a beautiful example of God's intentionality,  but more incredible to me is that there is even more to it. There's another form of suspension. It's actually suspended development.  This suspension speaks to the development or the lack thereof of development of cell life.

Now I promise not to take you too far into biology or zoology because I am NOT an expert and I'm not claiming it on any level but stay with me long enough to get a correlation between our lives and God's other creations.  So many types of animals can halt or delay the development of an embryo during the reproductive cycle. 

In these instances, the embryo remains dormant until conditions are just right for the births to take place. When the conditions are right or more favorable,  the embryo attaches to the uterine walls and the cycle continues as normal.  This process, like hibernation, is a result of adjusting to adverse conditions. 

So this is a very uncomplicated, overly simplified definition of this type of suspension. The term is actually called diapause.  So I said, okay, Lord, it's, it's a pause, a momentary arrest,  a suspension.  So the pause was necessary to increase the survival odds of that particular species.  It affords the most favorable time and environmental conditions are met before the births of the offsprings. 

I like that.  So it doesn't matter when the parents made it. The births will simply have to wait if diapause is induced.  Time.  Temperature and food supply all trigger the onset of this pause, this diapause.  So I love those words pause and induce right here.  Pause meaning to interrupt, delay, or arrest.  But the pause is just temporary.

It's not the end. It's actually a part of the cycle.  And induce, well, induce means to bring forth, to cause, to promote.  So they're at the opposite end of the spectrum, which is really interesting to me.  To pause, to later induce.  To interrupt, to later cause and bring forth.  To delay, to later promote.  Wow. So here I'm thinking it doesn't matter when the Lord gives us that dream,  that idea or that vision.

We could be full of expectancy. But sometimes we need to wait for the most favorable conditions. Sometimes we're in the right season in our lives. So giving birth to that, that dream, it happens sooner. It happens with more ease, right? More timely. You know, we, we like things to go boom, boom, boom. Or is, or is that just me?

And what I'm learning is sometimes diapause is induced.  Let's go a little bit deeper here.  In diapause,  The cells that would normally grow and divide are actually put on pause. They're interrupted or suspended. That's crazy, right? Like it just stops.  The delay actually promotes the success.  So the inducement of pause is a full statement all by itself, right?

That's full.  But here, the introduction of the interruption is Is a setup for the success, the success of the birth, the promise, the gift, my Lord, that's just amazing.  So again, I started to think about other introductions of interruptions, other pauses of dormancy. And I began thinking about the leaves on the trees  and how they turn colors from that green that we love to the yellow or the orange and the purples and the reds. 

And this is all a result of the absence of chlorophyll.  So the process is preparing the tree for dormancy, right? The leaves change colors to be, and they begin to drop all in preparation for the winter months. So the tree is now preserving its energy.  The animals and the trees all know what season they're in. 

They know what time it is. And they are in agreement with God the animal going through the dormancy or the suspended development Doesn't ask if they'll ever give birth again  The tree doesn't mock itself and regard its bearless branches as ugly or barren In fact the tree the tree and its leaves. It's interesting to me that the the tree Gives god the glory even while preparing for dormancy  You see the display of colors, or I call them the, the color parade is actually a song to the Lord. 

It's worship and praise. If you will,  all the way down to the last leaf that drops,  the tree is saying you created me, Lord, I trust you. You have my best interest in mind. So when you say rest, I'll rest. When you say, preserve your energy, I'll preserve. My energy  And even in my dormant stage, even when i'm in the thick of it all even when i'm in the midst Of that dormancy i'll praise your name Every step of the way Now who knew that the tree was an example of praise and worship, right?

That's it's just amazing to me  So, let me go back a quick second and just talk a little bit more about the bears I don't want to assume that everybody is on the same page with this bear family You  So mama and papa bear mate, and then she goes off  on her own to forage for food. She's doing her business like she, like she does, right?

She's finding food and she's trying to store up enough fat so that when she goes into hibernation, the embryo will develop. Right. It's a part of who she is, how she's made. She knows that if she does not store up enough fat, then that embryo will go through that diapause. Right. And in some cases, especially with the bears, the, the cell life will just be absorbed into the body and just expelled out with waste.

If in fact, she doesn't store up enough fat.  Because what's going to happen is that she's going to have her cubbies in the middle of her dormancy season. So she'll be in hibernation when she gives birth. So if her body has not stored enough energy and fat to supply for milk, for her cubbies and fat for herself, then they all starve.

So what good is it to be full of a promise, full of birth, Full of expectancy and then not have the very thing you need to allow it or afford it survival. I think that's just a beautiful display yet again of God's grace and how much he loves us.  So we don't have those types of triggers like the chlorophyll being absent or the body going into diapause, right?

Or hibernation, at least not in the same ways.  Sometimes the only way to still us to introduce pause in our lives is to allow that thing to completely engulf us like with Jonah.  So a couple of weeks ago, pastor Glenn, he was on fire.  1230 service, you know, I'm always repping that service rep your set.

That's one of my episodes, one of my favorite episodes, actually. And the title of that particular sermon was the one thing that changed everything. Go back, check it out. New Life Covenant Southeast. It will definitely bless you. But Pastor Glenn was talking about Jonah and how he struggled with his own disobedience.

He mentioned that you can feel unproductive or passive during this stage. And it made me think about this episode to the point that I went back to re record it so that I can include Jonah because Jonah was in a state of suspension as well. You see, while Jonah was in the belly of the fish, he was suspended.

According to Matthew 1240, he was in the belly for three days and three nights. So that was his length of dormancy, right? He wouldn't be delivered out of it until he had his breakthrough.  Not until conditions were favorable, in other words, for his, the success of his mission, his ministry, his assignment,  his prayer life is actually what triggered his change.

Pastor Glenn said Jonah needed some space to decide like some quiet time. He said Jonah was in a holding pattern.  And I was like, Oh, that's good. A holding pattern. A holding pattern is a state of no progress or change. You're like you're in limbo, you're suspended.  So whether you're like Jonah and you're fleeing from an assignment that God gave you, or maybe it's the opposite. 

You have a dream,  a story to tell, a product to design, A gift to market and you're, you're a bit anxious because nothing's happened yet or it's something's happened and then it stopped. You could feel the, the motion of it and then it just kind of stopped, kind of went into a suspended state. Don't give up and don't stop praying and don't stop praising the Lord because remembering dormancy and suspended development, quiet time, all of this  is just to increase the survival odds.

of that birth, of that promise, of that ministry, of your gift. Keep praying and keep praising him. I love that Pastor Hannah always reminds us that delay does not mean denial.  So I'm going to encourage you to take a few cues from the bear family and the trees. If God is that intentional about plants and animals, just imagine what he wants to do for you. 

I can't wait to talk with you soon