A New Season

Think about how you felt the day after Thanksgiving. One holiday just passed and another is right around the corner. For some people the boxes of Christmas decorations are already scattered all over the living room. Strings of lights winding and wrapping bushes and shrubs. For others, their Christmas décor sprinkles throughout their home in spurts right up until Christmas Day. The excitement of the seasons can be seen everywhere: throughout neighborhood, up and down store isles, downtown, shopping malls – everywhere.

But then, inevitably, December 26^th comes too. Christmas is now behind us. Yes, the festivities may last until January 1^st with the rolling in of the New Year, but sooner or later the decorations start to be a reminder that the season is over. They start to, beautiful as they are, look out of place. Left up too long and we start to make our neighbors wonder.

Christmas was different for me this year. My beloved dad went to see the Face of God back in June and my brother-in-law passed in late November. Both my Mom and George’s sister, Sue, were with us for Christmas. We had great times and some tears. Sue went back to Nevada soon after Christmas and my mom left yesterday. I hadn’t concerned myself with taking my decorations down, since my mom was still here. But this morning something changed. As I came out into the living room and turned on the Christmas lights, the appeal was gone; the season was gone. It was beyond time to take down and put away what once was fresh and beautiful and that perfectly decorated a season.

Our seasons with God are reflected in the way I felt this morning. What begins fresh and beautiful—and appropriate for the season—often ends knowing we must pack it up and put it away.  Our seasons with the Lord do come to pass.

It takes a hearing ear to understand the times and seasons of the Lord. In order to embrace Christmas, Thanksgiving had to pass. We have all been guilty of holding on to things that really should be donated to charity or the dump. What season are you in with the Lord? Have you taken down the decorations from your last season? Are you planting bulbs in May when it is actually time for annuals?

I don’t know how this translates for you or how the Holy Spirit is speaking to you about your seasons, but be courageous. Put away the former things and see the new thing the Lord is doing. Even as I write I am seeing a young child walking into an English Garden full of beautiful flowers—roses, vines, bushes and trees. The aromatics, the warmth, the sounds—all so summer. But looking out my living room window, it is not summer. It is cold and snowy. But, I purpose in my heart to make the most of this season, frigid as it is. I will plunge my heart and time into the things God has purposed for me now. Summer will come. The snow will melt, a new season will come. For now though, I will live wholeheartedly in this season. And when it is over, I will pack up the decorations, put them away, and move on.