Embracing Seasons

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what 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 seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, 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 for war, and a time for peace."

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8


As faithfully as the seasons blend and merge, so the seasons of my life blend...no season lasts forever. Each must be embraced and enjoyed in its own unique way. I must find my joy exactly where God has me, knowing that each day bears its own unique gifts...never to be offered again.

I struggle to discern "seasons", to appreciate the appropriate time for things. I go, go, go, never stopping to think what God's will for this moment is. I order my day around the tyranny of the urgent, forgetting that my chief end is to, ( as Piper says) glorify God by enjoying Him forever. I find myself coveting the labor and fruit of other seasons, forgetting that this one will pass all too soon, along with its own particular joys.

What would my life look like if I actually embraced its seasons? If I reveled in the beauty of each phase, instead of despising or fearing its weaknesses? In Genesis, God ordained that humans should order their lives about the ebb and flow of seasons, and again, He reminds us in Ecclesiastes. Seasons are a gift. They are a God given way of pacing me, of reminding me to enjoy Him. They are my Shepherd's rod and staff comforting me. When I refuse to embrace them, I grow blind and dull of Spirit, insensible to the abundant variety, beauty, and growth around me. Jesus reiterated it again when He said, "I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly."

Lord, help me to slow down and delight in You, to enter wholeheartedly into the seasons you delight to place me in, and to revel in the works of Your hands.