sEASONS…
We all know that seasons change. Seasons changing is a necessary pattern for things in nature to operate as they are intended to. The springtime brings new life, and warmth. Summer is filled with a lot of energy and gets things growing and lots of fun times. The fall is a time of preparation for what is ahead. Leaves fall to the ground, and lots of thing are preparing for hibernation. Winter comes in and hits a reset button. Plants and animals go dormant, waiting for the warmth of spring to arrive.
Our lives go through seasons as well. It isn’t quite as obvious as the weather changing, at least it wasn’t for me. I struggled most of my life failing to realize that our lives have seasons. I lived my life day by day and really didn’t have a good view of the big picture. I focused on what was right in front of me without thinking about how that affected my future. Especially in my younger years.
I see us having 4 major seasons in our lives, Change, Challenge, Recovery, and Growth. Sometimes I feel I experience all of them in one day, but I mostly see it as a general direction of my life in that period of time.
The season of change is normally hard. It can be a change we choose, or something we have no control over, but our lives still change either way. When we choose to change, we often are excited and are pushing hard to enter the Growth stage. Change can be forced by our circumstances. The unfortunate truth is that it is normally what forces change upon our lives. We are forced to change due to things outside of our control. We can choose to fight against it sometimes, but the change must happen no matter what.
Challenge normally follows Change in my opinion. Let’s face it, change is hard, especially when it is a forced change. Challenges seem to come out of nowhere. Sometimes the challenge is to just have a good attitude that day, other times it could be something much bigger.
In my life, I see that when I choose to make positive changes in my life, I am hit with something to challenge me to keep me knocked down. I have written about spiritual warfare before, and this is what I am talking about. In the past I have failed many times to implement positive changes in my life, but each time it happens I grow stronger in my conviction to win the next time.
The Recovery season is a welcome one after the challenge. It is a season to float or at least catch our breath from fighting for whatever we were striving to change. The change has been implemented, we are getting comfortable, and things seem to be working. I find that this is the hardest season because it is so easy to think we have it beat at this point, that we won the challenge, and no longer struggle in the area we had issues. That is exactly when I find I let myself down. I do all the work to build up something better only to allow my old habits or thoughts to bring me back down into the challenge again. I fail to claim victory and truly get past whatever I was working on or trying to build up.
In the season of Growth, we are pushing hard to be better. A new job, or a new online course, reading good books, etc. There are tons of things that will make our lives into something bigger and better than before. It rarely is easy, but it is always attainable if you are willing to put in the work. A lot of people never make it to this season very often. This season takes hard work and dedication, perseverance if you will. A lot of people give up well before getting to this point, myself included.
There is a reason I didn’t list a fifth season called relaxation or victory, or championship. It is because once you get to the growth season, there is no more coasting, no more taking it easy, and definitely no more idle hands or minds. Growth requires action, it requires our whole undivided attention. The goal is to stay in Growth and continue to work on ourselves until we are closer and closer to God’s vision for our lives. The goal is to live our lives according to the biblical expectations that are very plain to see.
We were made in the image of God. We are intended to be fruitful (successful), multiply (requires relationships), and to work to honor God in all we do. It is such a simple, yet difficult thing to accomplish.
I am nowhere near there yet, but I am working everyday to get closer to it.
Galatians 5: 19-23 NLT
19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!