Timing of the seasons
Many of us are familiar with Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (MSG) which we generally use to identify what type of season we are in and to also acknowledge that seasons begin and they do end.
There’s a Right Time for Everything 1 There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
2-8 A right time for birth and another for death, A right time to plant and another to reap, A right time to kill and another to heal, A right time to destroy and another to construct, A right time to cry and another to laugh, A right time to lament and another to cheer, A right time to make love and another to abstain, A right time to embrace and another to part, A right time to search and another to count your losses, A right time to hold on and another to let go, A right time to rip out and another to mend, A right time to shut up and another to speak up, A right time to love and another to hate, A right time to wage war and
another to make peace.
The difficult thing to figure out is when a season actually begins, what type of season we are in and when it ends. That requires us to tap into a deeper level in God because only He can answer those questions.
Unfortunately, if we do not figure this out we can misread the season and end up struggling through it. Confusion can also come when prophetic words are released and we grab a hold of them trying to apply them to our situations and wondering why they don’t pan out. I had been in a season for about a decade where I felt like I was in the backside of the desert…all kinds of trials; and in my human mind, I assumed that that season had to end in a few years. Every time a word would come in the early years about it is your time to come out…I would receive it and be so excited…only to wonder why I was still going through the same thing over and over again. Frustration would set in because I was constantly going on a roller coaster ride. God had to save me from myself. He had to show me that just because prophetic words were being released, I had to come to Him to find out if they applied to my situation or not. After going through that same thing several times, I realized what He was saying to me and just trusted in the knowledge that when that season was over, God would surely let me know.
One of the things that could be misleading is we think seasons are based on the beginning of the calendar year and the ending. Not so!! It is according to God’s timing and what He is doing in your life as He prepares you for your purpose. We need to be like the Sons of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 ‘from Issachar, men who understood both the times and Israel’s duties’. If we are going through a particularly difficult season, it is human nature for us to want it to end as soon as possible. What we don’t realize is that when we try to rush through the process to get to the end of the season, we might miss all the
wonderful things that God does and shows us in that season.
Without relying on God to transition you from one season to another, we rush into a new season without being fully prepared and finishing out our process in the old. I believe that when you move into a new season, we need to ask God to renew our minds as well so as not to bring the old thought patterns into the new season. Let me give you an example..
California had been in a drought for over 3 years and they kept saying how badly they needed the rain. There were water restrictions that had been put in place all over the state which everyone had to adhere to or they could be fined. Well, from about two years ago, we started having a lot of rain and heavy snow,
which would eventually become runoff that would fill up rivers, etc. No matter how much rain and snow we were getting, they were still saying we were in drought and refused to remove the restrictions. They would go and measure the snow pack and document how it was above average but still were proclaiming drought. It literally took them two years to finally realize and acknowledge that they were no longer in a season of drought, but in a season of plenty.
Same thing with us, we can totally miss when we are in a new season because we are so caught up with what happened in our last season. We attempt to live exactly how we did in our old season that seemed to work for us in that season. Here is a personal example..
We had been in a particularly difficult season this past decade that consisted of being stripped in every area. We went from having abundance in every area to having just enough. Sounds familiar? God literally had to take us through the process of taking our eyes off of the amount of money that was coming in and look to Him to meet every need. I can’t tell you how many times I wished that season would come to an end…yet there was a part of me that felt so liberated in not having to try and figure out how to meet every bill, every need…but watch God do it daily. In that season, we had to learn how to make do with a little. If we needed something, we had to learn to how to be frugal and to shop at stores that we would never had gone to before. That season eventually came to an end last year…here is where it got interesting. We knew we had transitioned to a new season but had no idea how much we would need to be reprogrammed. Now that we learned about trusting God at that level and Him being the ultimate source, we had to figure out how to stop living like we were without. Easier said than done. When you have had to live that way for 10 years, it is hard to rationalize to yourself that it is alright to buy something that you want instead of just what you need. Up to this day, even though we know we are in a new season and have been in it for about a year, we still have to walk out renewing our minds daily and not bringing the old mindsets into the new.
Not recognizing if you are in one season or another can be crippling. If you walk out of one season to quickly, then you will not be prepared for the next. If you don’t transition to the next season and are still trying to bring the old into the new you will have confusion. This year, the winter season seemed to hang on longer than normal and caused much confusion with Spring trying to make an appearance. It hung on so long that flowers, trees and fruit were trying to bud because it was their season to do so, but because the old season wouldn’t let go, fruit crops were damaged, buds kept falling off of trees and being frozen and it caused harvests to be late. One season tried to encroach on the other. It is the same in our lives, don’t try to hold onto the old if it is time for the new…and don’t try to leave the old if it isn’t time yet. Take a good look at what has been going on in your life and don’t be afraid to go before God and ask Him to give you discernment of the timing of the seasons.
