Seasons

Seasons come and go.  Spring becomes summer and summer turns into fall and, you get the idea. We’ll finally get used to a season and then, before we know it, we find ourselves in the midst of things looking completely different than we have grown used to. Some people love the summer, some the fall.  In fact, yesterday was the first day of fall.  Like it or not, soon the leaves will tumble to the ground and there won’t be quite as much green as there was a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe, if you are like me, you enjoy dreary weather.  I don’t know what it is about a gray, windy and rainy day that makes me smile.  Something about it.  Maybe it’s the fact that living in California, I don’t get to see many days like those.  Maybe God just made me to like gray skies.  I’m seriously looking forward to the cooler temperatures and stormy days!  That being said, maybe you are the type of person who loves seeing the green, maybe you enjoy the warm sun and seeing the liveliness of summer.  We all have things that we enjoy and ways that we prefer things to be.  There comes a time, however, when things aren’t the way that we want them to be. That next season comes and like it or not, we are thrust right into the middle of life not being quite as sweet as we might like it to be.

When we are in these new seasons that we don’t particularly enjoy, we have a couple of options.  We can mourn and focus on the days where we will be happy again.  Or, we can choose to trust God in this new season.  I have found that God has specific purposes and timelines for the things in my life.  In Ecclesiastes 3:1 it says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  God has intent for each season in our lives.  Some will last for decades.  Some for just a couple of hours or days.   The end of a season can be a mournful time, but I believe we should trust God and be thankful for the time we got to spend during each season.

Let me challenge you for a minute, and believe me, this is just as much a challenge for myself.  I want you to think of yourself in this exact moment.  Don’t think too much about where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow.  Think about right now.  Where are you?  What does life look like?  The reason it’s important to do this, is because the Bible says in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Isn’t that what we do constantly though?  Aren’t we constantly worrying about that next thing?  I know that I do; and I find it very distracting from the moment that I am living in.  I don’t believe that means we shouldn’t make plans.  Quite the opposite.  We should plan.  I believe that when it says not to worry about tomorrow, it means that we shouldn’t get so caught up in our future, that we let it distract us from where we are now.  Each moment that God gives to us, is another chance to choose Him.  To choose to love Him and to love those around us.  But too often, we miss the here and now. We are so caught up in what we envision or the way we want things to be, we miss the everyday moments that have just as much of a chance to impact us as our dream world.

That being said, I’ve found that instead of trying to make things the way that I think they should go, my time and my energy are much better spent if I am seeking the way that God wants them to go.  This means that I have to spend time with him.  I have to talk with him in Prayer and read my Bible and spend time with people who love Him too.  All of which I need to do a lot more of by the way.   I need more of all of these things.   I find it completely energizing when I invest time in these things.  God’s way is the better way, way better than anything I can think of! In the midst of change that my church is going through right now, that is simply what I desire.  To see God continue to build his Church and move us all closer to him.  I believe He will and is already using this change to cause us to grow and rely on Him even more!

Mist

When I think of the big picture of life, I cannot help but compare my life to the sum of creation.  To think that I am one of almost 7.37 Billion people alive right now astonishes me.  Whether or not you believe that the world is thousands of years old or millions or billions of years old makes no difference.  I am just one person of the billions of people who have lived or will live on this planet.  I will live, at most, around 100 years or so and then I am no more.  In James 4:14 it says, “…What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”  That may sound negative but I don’t take it that way.  I find it to be more of a challenge.  We only have so much time to live and when I think of life this way, I find myself not wanting to be quite as selfish.  I am forced to ask myself, “Do you really care about Jesus? Do you really care about others?” Of course I want the answer to those questions to be YES!  However, just like everyone that has ever lived (outside of Jesus), I have a huge part of me that wants to live life my way.  There is a part of me that thinks my way is best, and if you don’t agree with me, the easy thing to do is to run and cast you aside.  That isn’t how our church is supposed to work though.

I find that life is a much more beautiful thing when I am able to admit that I have that side.  It forces me to look at Jesus, and when I do that, I am not discouraged.  Instead, I am encouraged to try.  To try to align myself with him.  Not to push my views on anyone, but simply to look at life in a slightly different way than I would by myself.  Jesus’ example in life was to love and to point those He came across back to God.

One of my absolute favorite moments in Lord of the Rings (admit it, you knew this was coming), is when Frodo is talking with Gandalf and telling him that he wishes the ring had never come to him.  Gandalf’s reply is simple.  “…and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  Isn’t that the truth though?  We can spend our time serving ourselves and trying to make things just as we want them.  There is another way to live though, we can also choose to serve Christ and others and put their needs before our own.  Isn’t life better when we are helping others and thinking of something other than ourselves? 

Too often we are distracted by ourselves or ridiculous things television and the media push at us.  This world wants us to hate each other.  Honestly, I think many times we do, at least in action.  I mean, just think about it.  Who does society say should be your enemy?  Democrats? Republicans?  Muslims? A particular race?  Don’t buy into all of that.  Don’t hate anyone.  Just look at the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus is talking to a lawyer here about what it means to love his neighbor.  So he tells the story of a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him and left him half dead.  There are people who pass alongside him and notice him.  The first one is a priest.  A priest.  This is a guy who is supposed to know the right thing to do.  This is the guy who should love him.  What does he do though?  He passes to the other side of the road and ignores him.  Goes about his business, living life for himself.  Another guys comes by, this guy was a Levite, yet another religious figure who could have helped.  He too, passes him by and does nothing except worry about his own business.  There’s one more guy, a Samaritan.  Samaritans and Jews were not friends all the way back into the Old Testament.  These guys, in fact, by society standards, should have hated each other.  Out of all three people who came across the dying man, society says it should have been the Samaritan who crossed the road and went about his business.  But Jesus goes on to say that when the Samaritan saw him, he had compassion and went to him and took care of him and saw him to safety and even paid for him to be taken care of!

What?!  What is this?  This is an example of what it means to love our neighbor.  Not just the person who lives next door.  Not just baking pies for someone that we like.  Not just paying for someone’s coffee.  It means extending love, when it feels right to hate.  It means having compassion on someone who doesn’t think like you do.  It means to love.   Who can you love today?  Who is your neighbor?  Who is your enemy?  Love them anyway.

Yet another line in the Lord of the Rings that really strikes me comes when Frodo and Gandalf are talking about Smeagol/Gollum.  Frodo quickly says to Gandalf, “It’s a pity that Bilbo didn’t kill him when he had the chance.”  Gandalf replies, “…many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life, can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgement, even the very wise cannot see all ends.” 

Think about that for a minute.   Can you give life and love to those with whom you disagree?  Can you find it in yourself to love someone who is unlovable?  Can you forgive the unforgiveable? This is the heart of Jesus.

We need to love one another and stick together.  I listened to a sermon once that was talking about redwood forests.  Redwoods are this enormous tree, sometimes as tall as a football field, yet the redwood tree has very shallow roots.  The roots don’t typically grow deeper than about ten feet.  When you are around redwoods though, what do you notice?  Other redwoods.  The roots of redwoods intertwine and support one another.  They cling to one another and you have this vast system of support that supports each individual member.  Do you get it?  We need to be rooted together.  Those roots need to be found in Jesus.  Not in ourselves.  If we try to stand by ourselves, we will fail.  We will wither away.  We need each other and we need to be found in Jesus.  We need to decrease so that Jesus might increase.  We need to show the world more of Jesus and less of us. 

All this being said, I pray both for myself and for you.  That we would choose to love God and love the people that we come across.  Especially those whom we may not agree with.  They need it the most.  I pray that we find out more about who Jesus is and that we first look to His example.  If we look to Jesus we will never be disappointed.

I pray that God will lead you closer to Him, no matter what season of life that you are in.  Look to Jesus.