SEASONS OF LIFE

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV)

One of the things that has always fascinated me is the different seasons of life we must all go through in order to develop a sense of maturity in our lives.  As I look back on my life - there are some wonderful times and seasons that I went through and there also some very difficult days that I didn't think I would make it through to the end of the day.

Here's some facts about seasons for you to consider today: (Maurice Mccarthy gives this simple outline)...

1. In order to enter a new season we must often be stripped of the last season.
2. Comparison of your season with someone else's can kill contentment in your life.
3. The future is clear to God and fuzzy to us, so lets trust the one who knows

When it comes to the changing seasons on earth - many times the changes are abrupt and accompanied by storms, I think life is often also like that. Storms often signal a change in season, and not necessarily a bad change. Storms come before warmer weather just as much as they do before colder.

Another example about seasons is in the area of pruning. Pruning often takes place just before winter. Is it any different with us?  Before we can enter into a great season of harvest - we sometimes have to be pruned back and laid dormant for a winter season to prepare us for the next season in our lives.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:2 ESV)

Do you feel the pain of the pruning shears?  Do you feel the abandonment?  The rejection?

We need to take advantage of every season.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Carpe Diem" - seize the day? That phrase is from the Latin poet Horace, who lived and died just before Jesus was born. Latin scholars point out that the translation of the word 'carpe' (which comes from the verb which described the picking of fruit) is to 'pluck'. So the idiom 'carpe diem' is, literally translated: 'enjoy the day, pluck the day when it is ripe',

The best way to seize the day is to close the door on the past and move in the direction that God is leading you.

Notice these principles about the seasons of your life...

1. To enter a new season you must often be stripped of the last one.

It is interesting that in Ecc 3:3 and 3:5, we read of stripping away before we read of adding on, I think there is some significance in the way the text is ordered:

A time to break down, a time to build up.
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones.

Later the text talks about getting before losing, both are true. Sometimes in life you must subtract before adding, sometimes you add before subtracting.

Some people carry the past around and all it is a sack full of rocks that are slowing you down. 

The past is like a file folder in which we have:  "What actually happened, all the thoughts you have had about what happened, what others have said about what happened, the spin the devil has tried to put on it, what God has said about it. The file gets so full who can really tell what happened?"

Those who live in ruts have this outlook on life: They assume the course already laid is going to be the course life is going to continue to follow.

If you are in a season you don't like, take encouragement:

The prophet Daniel said by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: "He changeth the times and the seasons." Daniel 2:21

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18, 19 ESV)

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13, 14 ESV)

What about those things in our past that are good? Glance back, focus forward.

In Japan they have a custom that at the beginning of the year, they will open the front door and sweep out, symbolically they are sweeping out the bad spirits of the previous year and opening the door for the good spirits of the new year. The only spirit I want to open the door to is the Holy Spirit, but I like the idea of symbolically sweeping out the bad. Some of you may want to literally do that on New Years, we will also close the service this morning by doing that in prayer.

Sweep out hurts, sweep out failures, sweep out ill will towards others. Don't let 2013 ruin 2014 because you spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror of hurt, mistakes, rejections, painful circumstances.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19 ESV)

2. Comparison of your season with someone else's can kill contentment in your life.

How many of you have gone driving in someone else's neighborhood to look at the nice houses. Comparison kills contentment.

Or read a magazine about dream kitchens, or dream log homes. 

If you build your dream kitchen today, next week you will see some one else with a feature of their kitchen you will wish you had. It is the same way with seasons of life. You will always see someone in a different season that the one you are in, and it will make you envious if you are not careful.

I don't know what season you are in, but most likely their are people you know that you wish you could be in their season. Most of us wish we could do life like a buffet, we would only take what we wanted. I'll take some of that season that pastor has, and some of that my cousin George has. All that serves to do is make you discontent with your own season.

You can't pray away being a child, or a teenager, or a senior citizen, or the reality that goes along with those seasons of life. When you get up in comparing seasons, you may get very discontent with the season you are in, and try to pray away what can't be prayed away. That makes for a very sad camper! God makes all things beautiful in their time. Each seasons has a reason and a beauty about it. Discontentment may get you to try and force yourself out of a season that you really need.

We must often do two things at once in life: submit to the sovereignty of God, and fight the good fight of faith. It is a very hard juggling act at times. What I mean by that is should we submit to what is going on in life, or fight it in prayer. Knowing what to do isn't always easy.

Some seasons God won't make easier, and He won't explain why, because you don't have a big enough understanding to grasp it. Which takes us to my third and final point for today:

3. The future is clear to God, and fuzzy to us. So it's best to trust the One Who knows.

Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. (Ecclesiastes 7:13, 14 ESV)

Sometimes life is fuzzy and incomplete.  I don't understand why certain things are the way they are and why God has led me in this direction.  It's at times like that that I must trust the one who knows everything about my life and trust His direction and leading.

I saw a picture of two men looking into a baby's crib, one was the new dad, the other was his father (the newborns grandfather) The grandfather turns to his adult son, and says, "now you are just beginning to understand how much I love you." Kids can never fully understand how much a parent loves a child, until they become a parent themselves. With that thought in mind, I remind you that when your heavenly father is leading you into an unpleasant or difficult season, try to remember He loves you more than any father on earth ever loved their child.

May God give you grace today to be content in whatever season you find yourself in knowing the one who created us knows exactly the direction and place you need to go.  YOUR GOD LOVES YOU SO MUCH AND WILL GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO HELP YOU GET TO THE PLACE YOU BELONG IN LIFE.