The Seasons of Life

When I was a kid, my siblings and I were pretty involved in the children's ministry at our church. Like any children's ministry, our church split the kids up into different age groups. So naturally, I was always one group behind my older sister... and I hated it! One year, when her group got to go on a camping trip together, I remember burning with jealousy. My little kid mind didn't understand why the "big kids got to have all the fun". (I may or may not have even cried about it a time or two.)

Then I got to the age where I could finally go on fun camping trips and... you guessed it. I was still jealous of all the fun stuff my sister was doing with the older kids! No matter how old I got, in my head, the next thing was always better.

These may sound like the foolish whims of a ten year old little twerp (and they were), but this pattern of thinking has continued in my life to this day.

Think about the four seasons. (Unless you live in southern California) There is always going to be summer, fall, winter, and spring. When summer comes the warm weather is great for a while. We enjoy swimming and going to the beach. Then August rolls around and we start to get sick of the heat. It was good at first, but we are ready for the nice cool fall sweatshirt weather and colorful trees. And then fall comes and it is great for a while. Until it starts to get cold. And there's nothing worse than freezing cold weather without snow. If it's going to be cold there should at least be fun white stuff to play in! So we start looking forward to winter. And so on and so forth through all the seasons.

Life is the same way. When we are in middle school, we want to be in high school. When we are in high school we want to be in college. When we are single, we want to be dating someone. When we are dating or engaged, we want to be married. Or, if you are really weird like me, you look forward to having grand kids even though you don't have regular kids yet. (Yeah, I know... it's a problem)

The reality is, there is always going to be a season of life that seems more glamorous than the one you are in right now... until you get there. Then the next season seems more glamorous. And this pattern can continue your whole life if you aren't careful. I'm sure the pattern is the opposite for some people as well. Maybe they are always thinking about past seasons, wishing they could go back. Either way, it is not healthy to constantly be wishing you were in another season of life. Instead, we should understand what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 that "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens".

This has not been easy for me at all. Before I was married, I couldn't stop thinking about how much better life would be once I got married. And now that I am married it is constantly a struggle not to look forward to kids and what it will be like when I get to scare the boys my future daughter might bring home or how much fun it will be to teach my future son how to crush people in wrestling.

It is hard to focus on your present season of life and make the most of it during any season.

But it can be even harder if you are in a tough season of life.

Just like summer, fall, winter, and spring, not all seasons are created equal. Sometimes you are in a season of planting, which means you are putting in a lot of work with very little payoff. And sometimes you are in a season of waiting, and you want to make it go faster, but you can't. When you are in one of these tough seasons it seems like it will never end. They just draaaaag on - forever it seems.

If you are a young person like me, chances are, you are currently in a season of planting, waiting, or (more likely) both. So you know what I am talking about.

My encouragement to you is this. Don't get so caught up in the harvest (the payoff) that you forget to do the planting. In other words, don't look forward to the next thing so much that you forget to prepare for the next thing. The hard work you are putting in now will pay off if you don't give up. And if you are in a long hard winter of waiting, remember, there is nothing you can do to speed it up, but the spring time will come. And it will be worth it.

There is a time and a season for everything and it's not our job to pick which one we want to be in. It's our job to realize which season we are in and attack it like a crazy person. Otherwise we just might get stuck planting or waiting our whole life.