This morning I woke up to another dramatic change in the seasons. The calendar says it is November 12, yet the last few days have felt more like the middle of May. This morning, with the sun peering through the shades of our bedroom window, fog was lingering over the front lawn. With a bit of a chill in the air, I went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee to curtail the cooling effects my body is experiencing. (I normally don’t make coffee in the morning but today warranted a full pot to help minimize the shock of the cold in the air.) This isn’t the first chill we’ve experienced this autumn. However, it’s the bouncing back and forth between winter and summer that is shocking to my flesh. I’ve thought of the changing of the seasons many times this fall. You see, I strongly dislike the cold. Actually, despise is probably a better word. However, I’m attempting to embrace the changing of the seasons realizing that this is a part of living in this “neck of the woods” as Al Roker would say. (I remain confident through faith that at some point in my life, God will bless me with the opportunity to live in a warm climate such as can be found in South Florida, Southern California, or better yet, Maui. My wife votes for the last option.)
I have often heard it taught, “The physical always precedes the spiritual.” Whether you agree with this concept or not, it’s interesting to think about because it does just that . . . it makes you think. So I’ve been thinking about the changing seasons in the lives of those around me. In my short 42 years of life here on this planet, I’ve never experienced a time like this where the people around me — nearly every single one of them — is experiencing a dramatic change of seasons. Some are preparing for marriage. Others have packed up their bags and moved to another part of the country. Others are changing jobs. Yet others are considering changing jobs. Some are trying to figure out what they are supposed to spend their lives doing. And I’m trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up (and how I can make it Maui)! With all of this happening, I’m trying to learn and impart some of the things that I feel like God is speaking in the midst of the change.
- The changing of the seasons is a normal part of creation. Whether I like it or not, God did not create this planet to exist in the same state 12 months out of the year. He created everything with the principle that life couldn’t be sustained at the same level or intensity. Even nature needs a break. Every climate has varying degrees of changing climate. It’s part of creation. As it relates to our lives, we should learn to embrace the rhythms of changing seasons as it gives a fresh perspective and appreciation of what is past and what is to come.
- Winter may be here, but it doesn’t last forever. If you’re with me, your response is, “Thank God!” Summer will be here soon enough. In the meantime, winter serves a function. It gives us a break and helps us to perhaps stay inside a bit more. It causes us to appreciate the easier, more carefree times. I must admit, I’ve learned more in the winter seasons that I ever did in the carefree times of summer. Winter is tough. Yet it is necessary for things to come to life and grow according to the way they were designed. When God walks us through a winter season, we must realize that it is an absolutely necessary part of life. Without it, there would not be life. The principle is that life flows from death. The Bible is filled with the principle. Jesus demonstrated, and Paul taught it. (Philippians 1:21 — For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.)
- Two seasons, although similar, are never the same. If you think you’re going into winter, and it will be like every other winter, you’re wrong. The same is true of any other season. Every season is different and therefore has different things to teach us. I am reminded to approach the changing seasons realizing that there is something new that I must learn. There are new areas in which I must grow. I can’t approach life the same way I did in the past. If I do, then my life will grow mundane and predictable. The mundane and predictable are safe but pretty boring.
- The changing of the seasons prepares you for the season that is to come. I know personally, I’ve been in a series of crazy seasons that really began during the summer of 2009. The journey has been pretty intense. Although I really can confidently say that I’ve learned more about God, my wife, ministry, life, people, and myself during these last 18 months. As I’ve learned and moved through these seasons (not always as well as I would have liked), I continue to sense another new one coming. It has been a long winter, but I do sense summer coming. I personally believe that this summer is the best that I’ve known up to now. Yet, had I not gone through these last seasons, I would never be able to walk into this new one that is before me.
- How you finish one season determines how you enter the next. Of everything I’ve said, this is probably the hardest to walk out. I don’t know about you, but as I can sense change coming and one season ending, I tend to already be mentally and spiritually in the new season. I “check out” of the current season in a hurry to get to the next. I keep reminding myself that the fruit you sow in one season will be the harvest that you reap in another. Growing up a farm in central Indiana, I understand that all too well. My father ended spring knowing that it would determine what would happen in the fall. What he reaped in the fall wouldn’t just affect fall, it would affect the finances of the winter and the following year. He never had the luxury of “checking out” of a season. If he did, he would literally pay for it for the next two years. We’re the same. God is preparing us and teaching us in one season for what will come in the next. If we try to rush the ending of one season for the coming of the next, we will personally become responsible for hijacking our destiny in the season to come. Hijacking doesn’t mean that our destiny is thwarted. It just means that we end up on a detour that leads us off track for a season — oh yes, another season!
This reminds of Ecclesiastes 3. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (NIV) I encourage you to read the entire chapter. Verse 11 says, “He makes everything beautiful in its time.” So here’s to beauty. I don’t know about you but I want my life to be a beautiful reflection of the One that made me.
Well said. Well written. Couldn’t have come at a better time (or season) for me. Thanks!
🙂
That’s a good word right there! Thanks for sharing! Lord I’m ready for winter to end!
I vote for south FL….oh ya….I’m already here!!!
But really…in IN the winter is the time for dying not a time of growth. Down here it’s the opposite. Summer is our time to stay inside….no gardens no harvest coming….everything is at a stand still because of the immense heat. It’s in the fall and winter that our harvest time begins with relentless abandon! All summer long the citrus orchards are in a state of limbo…but in October the color starts to change and now the early oranges are starting. Harvest time. This will continue until about March when the heat adn humidity make it imp[ossible for things to thrive and grow.
Our lives here are the same….we arrived just as the heat became intense and hid out in the house. Once in awhile we ventured out to the beach. Our spiritual lives mirrored it as well. When I’d be experiencing a time of activity adn harvest I was in a season of dying…..to prepare for the new beginnings of NEW GROWTH AND HARVEST!!!!!
Amen and Amen Pastor
Dear Pastor,
What a perfect time in my life to hear from you and your insights. I have felt lately, and I believe it’s been happening with many others, that this time of year brings not only outward change, but inner reflection, and it is good for us to go through these times. Without conflict outward, there is no character building, and no inner change. I welcome this change, and also dread it, but it happens every year as it should, as God designed.
Thanks for putting it into perspective, and as always, love you brother!
Kerry
Pastor and sunday school both hit this same message this morning. . .
Romans 8:
12-14So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?