Learn to Embrace the Seasons of Your Life

seasons of life

We have reached the midpoint of the best season of the year, Baseball season. It’s no secret how much I love the game.

But, of course, the year breaks down into other seasons too. Softball, football, basketball, hockey and a myriad of other sports have their seasons. Sportsmen can only hunt or fish for particular species during specified season.

The calendar year features four weather seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Well, except here in Georgia, we tend to skip winter. We have winter occasionally, but it usually only lasts a week or less.

Seasons of Life

We experience seasons in our lives as well. In his Holy Spirit inspired journal of wisdom, Solomon reminds us that God ordains the seasons of life (Ecclesiastes 3:1). He also considers these seasons occurring in God’s timing a beautiful thing. (Verse 11)

Change is inevitable as we move through the seasons of our lives.

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We struggle to own up to the seasons of our lives because we resist change so tenaciously. But whether we admit it our not, change is inevitable as we move through the seasons of our lives.

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Change All Around Us, But God Does Not Change

change

Facebook has a new feature that I kind of enjoy.  When I sign on for the first time most days, Facebook displays a past post for me to remember. Most often on my feed, it is a picture of my daughter from her younger years.  Those pictures provide warm memories but also a chilling reminder of how much things have changed over the years. Change is inevitable.

Indeed many things have changed over the course of my life.  In fact, things have changed more in the last 10 years than the first 42 years of my life combined.    The cost of living has risen while cultural morality has declined. We now call entertainment things that used to shame us. And we pay big bucks for that entertainment.  My daughter will come to adulthood in a totally different world from the one which greeted my adulthood.

Things have changed more in the last 10 years than the first 42 years of my life combined.

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Many are unsettled by both the abundance and uncertainty of the change that is taking place around us.  Many have exchanged hope, peace, and confidence for fear, stress, and disillusionment.  The good news is that while the world may change around us, our God has not changed, nor will He.

In Malachi 3:6, God declares, “I, the Lord, do not change.”  When things are changing uncontrollably around us, we can turn to the ONE who never changes.  Theologically, we call this attribute of God His Immutability.  God’s unchanging nature is not just an intellectual reality, but a relevant truth on which we can hang our faith.  Consider these ways our God does not change.

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Are Your Issues with the Fruits or the Roots?

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I have often had people say to me,  “Preacher you need to preach a sermon on ___________ .” Most of the time people fill in that blank with something they think others are doing wrong, or something right that others aren’t doing and need to get busy doing.

Two kinds of issues are at play in every person’s life – fruit issues and root issues.  Fruit issues are the visible evidences of root issues. Most of the time, people suggest preachers preach about fruit issues. Sure, I could preach about tithing, alcohol, church attendance and involvement, etc.; but the best that kind of preaching accomplishes is temporary, guilt-induced behavior modification.  As soon as the next temptation comes, the guilt subsides and the fruit issues re-emerge.

If we properly address the root issues, however, then we will see different and more permanently positive fruit.  We don’t have tithing, attendance, involvement, alcohol, or other fruit problems.  We have LORDSHIP and OBEDIENCE root problems.  The key is to get right at the heart level and the behavior level will naturally improve. That was the whole point of Jesus’ comment in the Sermon on the Mount, “…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) Their piety was mere outward show, but Jesus calls us to a genuine heart.

I encourage you to ask God to work on you from the inside out.  Ask yourself why you exhibit some of the fruit issues in your life.  Ask God to set your heart right and watch the fruit issues take care of themselves.  Watch how God, as you submit to His Word, brings about genuine and permanent change in your life.

Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. – Proverbs 4:23