THE SEASONS OF GOD

“The day is Yours, and Yours also the night;
You established the sun and moon.
It was You who set all the boundaries of the earth;
You made both summer and winter” (Psalm 74:16-17, NIV).

Each of the four seasons has a purpose and is quickly followed by another. When the quartet is complete, it is followed by another grouping of four seasons and this is what we call the passing of time and life.

Just as there are seasons in the natural world, so there are in the kingdom of God. Each season has its purpose and each one is preparing us for days to come. Life in the kingdom of God is sequential just as in the natural.

We don’t always understand all that is going on in the season we are passing through and, frankly, we are not supposed to. My least favorite season is winter. I love spring, I love fall, I enjoy summer and I tolerate winter. In the world of nature, especially plants, winter seems to be the time when very little is happening—at least little that we can see. Crops are planted in the spring and tended/prepared for harvest, which comes in late summer or fall.

Winter seems to be the least productive of all the seasons and yet the Word says that God made winter—so what am I missing? What is the purpose of winter? It’s not always visible to the eye but winter is that period of quiet, out-of-sight preparation for the next period of growth. As much as I dislike winter, God knows that in order for there to be productive planting and harvesting, there must be a time of preparation of the soil.

In Romans 5 the apostle Paul gives us a unique insight into the sequential seasons that the Spirit of God has for each of us. Yes, I said each of us—no exceptions!

I call this quartet of insights, “The seasons of God.”

“We . . . glory in tribulations” (Romans 5:3, NKJV).
Paul is saying that we rejoice in tribulation—not for the tribulation but because of what the season is going to produce. I call tribulation the breaking up of the hard ground. Seeds cannot be planted in rock hard, compacted soil so the soil must be broken up, softened, before new life can begin. Then the seed can be received, water can be supplied, and new growth can begin. Sometimes soil gets hard just from being exposed to the elements. It gets baked by the sun and pressed down by the crush of life, so there must be a time of breaking up and refreshing the soil for new life to come. The Word of God calls this process tribulation.

“Tribulation produces perseverance” (verse 3, continued).
God is not in the same kind of hurry we are. We live in a time that has lost the art of patience and perseverance; we want things—and we want them now! Perseverance is learning to cross the finish line of every task, every assignment.

For nearly twenty-five years I jogged four or five times a week. I loved jogging! I loved breaking a sweat and I loved the natural high that comes as you pile up the time and distance in every run. For me, the hardest part of jogging was always the last half-mile. I knew the finish line was just ahead and my mind would begin to appeal to me: “Go ahead and quit now. Nobody’s going to know! You’re old and your legs are tired so just walk the last few hundred yards.” And so the conversation with myself would go.

Perseverance means saying, “The finish line is just ahead and when I cross the line, I will stop.” The apostle said to his young protégé just before he died, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7, NKJV). That’s perseverance!

Tribulation teaches patience and together they bring forth character. And then we cross into another season.

“Perseverance [produces] character” (verse 4).
A person with character is a person with faith that has been tested, and integrity that is evident to everyone.

The story of the Prodigal Son is really the story of two brothers. One risked everything by some very foolish behavior and the other stayed home. True, he showed integrity but then he complained when his brother returned and their father threw a party. Simply put, God wants us to embrace the best of each of the brothers—the willingness to step out in faith coupled with the stability of integrity.

A second aspect of character is experience. Some things in our walk with God can only be learned as we travel the highway of life in the Spirit. You can read about them and talk about them but they can only be learned through personal experience, which takes time—and time cannot be rushed.

“Character [produces] hope” (verse 4, continued).

Hope is a four-letter word that has lost much of its meaning in our time. We have misused the word hope by saying things such as, “Well, I hope that works out for you,” when inside we are thinking, “I don’t really care, just don’t bring that up for discussion again.”

Embedded in the meaning of the word hope is a quality of certainty and expectation that is founded on the assurance that God’s promises are true and His Word always comes to pass. The word hope means “a settled expectation.” Hope is not inferior to faith but is an extension of faith. It is the expectation that says, “As God has been faithful in the past, so He will be now, in this situation.” David had hope when he faced Goliath because he had already killed a lion and a bear.

Hope emerges stronger as we pass through the seasons of tribulation, patience and experience. As hope grows stronger, so will our fruitfulness.

And so we move through the seasons one after another. Just when we think this garden that we call our life has become wonderfully fruitful, suddenly we pass into another season and the cycle of the seasons begins again.