SEASONS
As the air grows crisper, and the trees begin to show signs of fading, I am reminded of the perpetual ebb and flow of the seasons around us. Just as surely as summer explodes into fall, I know that fall will eventually fade into winter which, in turn, will yield to spring's regeneration. Many people complain about certain seasons, or various aspects of them, but I have grown to appreciate them all. Just as there are challenges to every season, there are also just as many blessings that can be found in each one.
Each season is unique and offers opportunities or tasks
that are specific to that time, and that time only. People who lived during the 18th and 19th
centuries understood this much better than we do in this modern age. They paid close attention to the changes of
seasons and the phases of the moon.
"Moon seasons" governed when the best time to fell wood, plant
various crops, or drive cattle to market would be. There were things that our ancestors would do
under a waxing moon that they wouldn't dream of doing under a waning moon. They knew that if they waited till the second
running of sap in the fall to fell trees for fencing, the wood was sturdier and
lasted two-thirds longer.
Solomon, who received a gift of divine wisdom from God,
wrote in Ecclesiastes, "To
everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a
time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that
which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and
a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a
time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones
together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to
get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to
rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to
love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). He realized that,
just as there are seasons (or phases) in the natural world, there are also
seasons that we pass through in our spiritual journey. As much as we'd like to, and try to, we
cannot control the seasons of life any more than we can govern spring, summer,
autumn, or winter. Some phases of life
bring great blessings. In them we may
flourish and find great peace and growth.
Others, however, may bring heartache, grief, tragedy, and
tribulation. This is the nature of life
and living. Regardless of the season of
life that we find ourselves in, there are three things that we must understand
about the seasons of life.
The first thing that we must learn about the seasons of
life is that we cannot fully comprehend God's purpose, or why He allows or does
the things that He does. "He hath set the world in their heart,
so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the
end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11b).
Yes, He gives us glimpses into His plan as it relates to us directly,
and the more we mature as Christians, the more we grasp; but much of what God
does is veiled to us. It's not that He's
keeping secrets from us: it's just that we are not always in a position to
understand. We are yet very worldly in
our comprehension of things that are heavenly.
At one point in His ministry, Jesus began to share with His disciples
God's plan for Him to be delivered to the Jews and be crucified. Peter was upset at the very thought of this
and denied that it should come to that.
He simply could not fathom what God was up to. We must learn not to demand answers from God
which we are not prepared to handle. If
it is important for us to see it, God will give us light. Our anguish over such things will not bring
us to a better understanding. In the
end, we must come to the faith of Job who said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." (Job 13:15).
The second thing that we can understand about the various seasons of life is that, "He hath made everything beautiful in
His time." (Ecclesiastes 3:11a).
In a way, all of the seasons work together to produce an ultimate
outcome: life. The decay of fall, the
winter snows, the violent winds and storms of springtime and the intense heat
of summer all work together to bring about the regeneration of the earth. The world brims with new life - bringing
forth its bounty, and reseeding the ground to perpetuate its kind. We can get
caught up in any one phase of this great plan and lose sight of the grand scheme
of things. So it is with our individual
lives. Our heavenly Father has a plan
for each of us, and we can be assured that, "All
things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28). The key here is that all things work together
for good. Each "thing" taken separately may not seem good to us at all,
but placed in context with everything else in our life we can know that God
will work something good according to His purpose for us. In His time it will be beautiful, you can trust in that.
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