In Season

What is your favorite season of the year? Maybe it's winter, when everything is blanketed with pure white, glistening snow and all the trees are bare. Maybe it's spring, when the air begins to warm after an icy cold winter and new green leaves are budding and beautiful flowers are beginning to bloom. Maybe it’s summer, when the kids are out of school, the days tend to grow lazy, and perhaps you get to head to the beach for a family vacation. I think maybe my favorite is fall, when there’s a crisp, refreshing chill in the air after a long hot summer and the leaves of the trees turn beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and red. Texas never has much fall color, so this is something I am looking forward to seeing in Colorado. Even though I arrived here too late last fall to see the fall color, I don't have to worry because I know that fall will come again.

We all know that it doesn't stay one season forever. In the midst of freezing, arctic cold days, we have hope that spring will come and the air will grow warm again. And in the midst of blistering hot summers, we have hope that fall will come and the air will grow cool and pleasant again. All of nature was created to flow in a continuous cycle of warmth and cold, of growth and rest --and not just the weather and the trees.The psalmist talks about seasons for us as well. 

Psalm 1 describes a person who strives to avoid evil and who meditates on God’s Word day and night. That person “is like a tree planted beside streams of water that bears its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither”  (Ps 1:3 HCSB). He doesn't bear fruit constantly? Jesus says something like this in John 15. He says that we are to remain in Him (avoid evil influences and meditate on God’s Word day and night like in Psalm 1) so that we will bear fruit. Do you think He expects us to constantly bear fruit, or to remain in Him regardless of life circumstances, and experience the cyclical nature of life and growth, including seasons of rest and barrenness, seasons of growth, and seasons of bearing fruit? All must be done in season. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" (Ecc 3:1 NIV). 

We can feel so completely useless during a pruning or resting season when we are not actively bearing fruit, but when we look at a bare tree in the winter, do we think it is useless because it is not currently loaded with fruit? Of course not! We know that the tree is currently resting and dormant, and that it must be in the proper point in the cycle of seasons in order to bear fruit as it is created to do.

When we think of “seasons of life,” we generally tend to think about spring as childhood, winter as old age, and summer and fall as the years in between. However, if we saw a tree that survived only one cycle of the seasons, we would not think that it had lived a full, productive life, nor would it have the opportunity to bear all the fruit it could have. When a tree receives a supply of water, the required nutrition and sunlight, it goes through repeated cycles of growing, bearing fruit, and resting. We do the same throughout our spiritual lives. As long as we remain in Jesus, remain planted by the Living Water (John 4:10-13), nourished by Scripture, prayer, and by doing God’s will (John 4:32-34), and if we allow Him to prune us (John 15:2), then like the tree, we will also go through seasons of life and growth –of resting and bearing fruit.

The good news is that if you are in a season you do not like, the weather will change soon. No season lasts forever. It may be winter, but spring is coming.