One lazy afternoon, I vividly remember God teaching me about seasons. I was looking at a bare tree outside my house one day, and I sensed God asking me what I saw. I told him it looked like a dead tree. I sensed him correct me and tell me it was just a tree in winter and that I needed to be careful not to call things dead before He said they were dead. This taught me that even when I think I see, I need to be sure that I get God’s perspective and not simply rely on my own.
Scripture tells us there is a time for every purpose.
“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:” Ecclesiastes 3:1
That chapter goes on to list the specifics such as a time to plant, a time to harvest, a time to be born a time to die etc. Have you ever contemplated that some of the very things you are resisting, could actually be seasons that are needed in order produce the very things you so desire? If we cannot handle giving up our seeds, we will never see the harvests from those seeds.
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22
I see such wisdom in God’s designs for seasons. First, it teaches us the impermanence of things. Hard times don’t last forever, neither do easy times. Next it shows us that the outside appearance of things does not tell the full story. Just as the bare tree that I thought was lifeless was not, God looks on our hearts and knows what season we are in. He does not give up on us simply because we are not in a season that includes lots of blooms.
As I pray for our nation this week and contemplate seasons, I am mindful of this verse.
“And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.” Daniel 2:21
In my next post I will write more about times when I’ve learned more about seasons. But for now, I just want to encourage you that God knows what He is doing and that things looking a bit different than they did at some point in the past is perhaps just as it should be, for now.