We are currently in the fall season and final outdoor tasks are being looked after before the daily temperatures become cold and the outdoor weather less inviting. We know that there are four seasons in our weather cycles. Are you embracing this season and preparing for the next one to come?
A survey of literature shows us very quickly that the word ‘seasons’ is also used as a metaphor or word picture to describe new periods of personal experience.
As we spend time with others and consider our own life stories we may recognize some changing seasons in our life due to relationship changes, personal health needs and just plain old ‘aging’ of our bodies and minds.
The Bible offers recognition of seasons in our personal life. In Psalm 1 we read about the person who chooses wise friends and is guided by the law of the Lord in daily life. In verse three we read “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers.”
Streams of water points to a healthy source that feeds the roots of our lives (body, soul and spirit). The trees we see above ground can only be healthy if they have a good and reliable source to feed the roots. God’s revelation and guidance in the Scriptures gives us the resources we need to feed the deepest part of our inner person. I am glad the apple tree in my backyard produces great fruit but without the underground supply for the roots it would be nothing.
If we are like a tree with roots that are connected, we will have different seasons but not all seasons are fruit bearing seasons. We grow, mature and learn over years and decades. We can and probably will be battered by winds we did not ask for or anticipate. We will not always be bearing discernible fruit but the buds can become blossoms and the process of bearing fruit moves toward a season of growth and harvest.
When the roots are well supplied the leaves will not wither. With God’s help, we can face circumstances that could be highly stressful because we believe that God has not forgotten us and is able to look after us in this present ‘season’. There can be a calmness that carries us in what seems to be unscripted times. The “leaves” of your tree do not need to dry up.
You may still have leaves to rake up in the yard where you live but God invites us to walk with him through all of the seasons of our life. Talk to God about the season you are living in and ask him for guidance. He provides the source to feed our soul. King David wrote: “Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.” (Psalm 28:6,7)
Randy Smart has been a pastor in Southern Manitoba since 1979.
