I have worked outdoors most all my life, and looking from my current vantage point, I see that my view of the changing of the seasons was more oriented to my work than to the actual God-ordained seasonal changes.
Maybe it is because of another birthday, but I’ve become more aware of the gradual transition between those seasons. Lately, I’ve noticed a subtle change taking place as summer makes way for fall. Leaves turn from green to gold, temperatures cool, and the winds are becoming more northerly. Nature seems to be taking a short rest in anticipation of the changes ahead. There is a quietness to the mornings and evenings that wasn’t there in the hot summer months.
We have the idea that the seasons change quickly, but that is a misconception. There are slow, but inevitable signs of coming change. It is much the same in our own lives. We don’t suddenly wake up some morning and discover we are teen-agers. Likewise, we don’t arrive at old-age overnight. There is constant change, leading up to each stage of life.
It is the same with our spiritual life. It seems as we get older, there is a new awareness of the changing seasons of our lives. God has a plan for each person, and there are seasons of change as he brings us to maturity. When we become Christians, we do not stay the same. There are stages of growth, each one leading to another, until he takes us home to heaven.
It was King Solomon who wrote “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
In his book “The Seasons of God”, Richard Blackaby reminds us there are seasons in our lives. They aren’t all about just being born, living to a ripe old age and departing from this life. Instead, he focuses on the fact that just as in nature, the seasons keep repeating throughout our individual lives. At each stage in life, we each move from a beginning to an ending, only to move on to another beginning, and so on.
Here is the problem; as we go through life, we get caught up in our labors and our own self-effort, and fail to see those seasons. In particular, we overlook what God is doing in us, for us, and through us.
Reflecting,
Pastor Jerry
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