Seasons

I love weeks like this. There were beautiful sunny days. There were rainy, stormy nights. There was a chill in the air. But more than anything, the colors of the leaves began to explode in golds, reds, and oranges. Weeks like this are vivid reminders that one season is ending and another is beginning. I need to remember this. I need a reminder to be grateful for the seasons….and the seasons of life.

We go through many different seasons in our lives as men and as fathers. Some are season of joy. Things are great with our families. It’s a time of connection, playfulness, engagement, and fun. If you find yourself in this season, you are not alone. There are other men celebrating a time of joy as well, and they need you to join them! But remember….this is a season, so savor it. Marinate in it. Cultivate it. Hold on to it as long as you can. Share it with others and help spread the warmth of this season like a clear, summer day.

Others of you are in a season of struggle. Things are difficult with our families. It’s a time of distance, rejection, anger, and strife. If you find yourself in this season, you are not alone. There are other men barely hanging on as well, and they need you to remind them…this is but a season. It won’t always be this way. Pursue. Fight for your family. Guard your heart. Don’t give up. The rays of restoration, forgiveness, connection, and love will one day break through the clouds and this season will end. Remember this and be like a warm fire to men walking through a season that feels like the bitter cold of a long, harsh winter.

There are other seasons too. Seasons of loneliness, seasons in the wilderness, seasons of success, seasons of influence, and on and on it goes. These might be highly individual to you, or they might affect your entire family or community. But two things are constant in whatever season you find yourself. One, that season will soon end and another will begin. And two, God is with you wherever you are.

Consider the following passages:

Deut 11:11-12 – Do you doubt God is watching over you and the garden you are tending through each season? Dare to believe!

Job 38:31-33 – Find comfort and strength in the sovereignty of God. Surrender the need to control your life and simply admit you are powerless before an all-powerful God. Delight in the God who can do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Ezekiel 34:26 – Does it seem as if you a stuck in Narnia, where it’s always winter but never Christmas? God promises to bring a season of blessing…at just the right time. It’s never too early nor is it ever too late.

Dig into God’s word and remember how He has shown up in your own life, at just the right time. Use this “Gospel lens” to see how God is not holding out on you, but rather how He is fathering you, and me, in each season. Oh, how He loves to watch His sons laugh and play and how he laments His sons hurting and lonely. But each season has a place and has a lesson that is needed. Don’t miss this — EVERY season is a gift. As you are able to fully embrace what He is offering you through each season, you begin to show others that you are truly a son of God.

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See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.   1 John 3:1-3