Monday, October 21, 2013

For Everything There is a Season


Allergies are raging, temperatures are dropping. It can only mean one thing: season is changing. How many changes accompany the changing of a season? Wardrobe, health, studies, daylight hours, sports: all of these things change during the transition from Fall to Winter. It’s the natural order of things. We experience it every year, yet always complain when it finally arrives. We go from saying “I can’t wait for it to be cooler” to immediately complaining about how cold it’s gotten. At least that’s how I’ve perceived it. It’s just like as a kid, I would always wish summer to arrive sooner so I wouldn’t have school, but as soon as I had nothing to do for a few weeks, I wished school was back in session.

For everything there is a season.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? For everything there is a season, a reason, and a purpose. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes that “for everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven” (3:1). As I sat down to write today, God laid this upon my heart. How often do try to take our lives into our own hands rather than trust God’s timing?

I’m in a season in my life where I’ve been struggling to rely on God’s supremacy and finding my fulfillment in Him. As Christians, we are called to give God our whole hearts. He doesn’t want just half of your heart, or even just three-fourths of it. He wants all of it. All. Todo. Complete. Every single bit.

But we’re supposed to love people, too. How are we supposed to give God our whole hearts while still loving others?

Yes, we’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus says that this is the greatest commandment. Our love for others should not compare to our love for God. In fact, Jesus says in Luke 14:26 that our love for others should look like hate compared to our love for God. If your love for something could measure up to your love for God, that thing has become an idol.

It’s easy to make something an idol in our lives. Oftentimes, we don’t realize we’ve done it. For instance, softball was an idol in my life. I realized this when I first attended Centrifuge in Glorieta, New Mexico, the summer after my junior year in high school. That was an easy one to detect. But, I’ve come to the realization recently that the desire for a relationship has replaced softball as an idol in my life.

We’re human, we desire relationships. While this may be true, the desire can bring forth idolatry. I’m ashamed to admit this but my desire for a relationship seemed to overshadow my desire to further my relationship with God. It should not be this way.

Our identity should be found in Christ. God is sufficient and He is all we need. Did He not give His Son on the cross so that He may have an intimate relationship with us? He loves each of us more than anyone could ever imagine. His love cannot be measured on a scale of 1-10. He would never betray us; He will never leave nor forsake us.
When we don’t know what’s in store, God does. When we are uncertain of what our future may be, God already knows. We can find peace in the fact that everything will work together to glorify His name, whether or not we see the reason for it in the moment.

“Broken Hallelujah” by The Afters has a line in it that absolutely strikes me to the core.
Even though I don’t know what Your plan is
I know You’ll make beauty from these ashes.
We serve a God that desires to make us into what He intended us to be. He wants an intimate relationship with each of us and for us to give Him Lordship over our lives. Do we trust Him enough to relinquish control of whatever we think is best for ourselves and let Him have it all? I know I struggle with that, but brothers and sisters, He will not lead us astray.
This has just been a round-about way of encouraging you to rest in the fact that God knows what He’s doing. This may be a rough season in your life as it is in mine, but God has it under control. We may not can see the end result, but by trusting in the Lord, we will make it through the storm.
Rest easy.