A Time for Every Purpose

As our women’s group (Rise Up) meets every month, we come together to not only grow in our relationship with our Lord but to grow in our relationships with one another! What a beautiful opportunity to strengthen and gird ourselves up!! I thought I’d share what we talked about last night….seemed so timely…..

Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To EVERYTHING there is a season, A TIME for EVERY PURPOSE under heaven….”

Seasons….just as we have our natural cyclical seasons throughout our year….so to, do we live and journey through season after season after season in our spiritual lives. Life is organized in a pattern of repeated cycles. Picture with me the calendar seasons. We can surely see that as we start in the Fall ….things are beginning to fade and die, the grass begins to trade it’s beautiful lush green for the mousy brown blah! Flip flops are being exchanged for shoes and boots, and the smell of a new season is on the horizon. We then enter into the dead of winter (I might add VERY DEAD if you live in MN!) Things have died, withered, it’s dark for a longer portion of the day, and it is very very long!! As we come out of the winter season things begin to change, the snow begins to melt away leaving patches of snow here and there in our yards….and Spring pops its head bringing some sort of reprieve from the brutal long cold! Again, a new season is approaching. Then we enter into summer…..Freedom!! No shoes, no eighteen layers, no cumbersome snow boots!!! Free at last!! Such a short season!! (This is where I’d like to put the sad crying emoji!!) If we parallel these physical seasons that we cycle through year after year after year we can see that it is the same in our spiritual lives! Psalm 23:4 says “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear not evil; For YOU are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” This Psalm is not talking about death  …. the Complete Jewish Bible says it like this, “….even if I pass through death-dark ravines, I will fear no disaster; for you are with me.” Ya see guys, in the cycle of our seasons we will have times we walk through “winter”, “the valley”, “the death-dark ravine” – the cold, the dark, the lonely at times, and many times the very tough. But notice it says WALK!! It doesn’t say to sit down in a hard, dark season….it says to keep walking because if we keep walking we will cycle into a new season (Spring – new life)…..again, where the darkness begins to fade, the dreariness begins to turn into early morning sunshine and the smell of newness is in the air. Galatians 6:9 says this, “And let us NOT GROW WEARY while doing good, for in DUE SEASON we shall reap if we do not lose heart”. The Complete Jewish Bible says it like this…..”So let us not grow weary of doing what is good; FOR IF WE DO NOT GIVE UP, we will in DUE TIME (DUE SEASON) reap the harvest.” There is purpose in every season we journey through!!  So as we continue our seasons….remember…don’t give up…keep on walking…..keep doing good WHILE going through the winter season…..it will change, it will bring you right to where you need to go…..”A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE”……A NEW AND BETTER SEASON!!