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Across the Pastor’s Desk by Ryan Quigley

 

Spring is one of those amazing seasons that just brings restlessness to life. After the long dormant winter where countless things are unmoving or lifeless, something begins to stir in the world around us. The animals missing from the landscape, the trees looking bare and so many individuals feeling trapped because of the long winter. Yet, spring has arrived in all its life-giving splendor!

At our house spring tells us to get moving. The warm weather activities start again, we break out our bikes and plan our activities for the kids. Now that life is coming out of the ground it means that it is finally time to prepare the ground for seed, personal gardens are being mended and farmers are getting their fields ready. This is the season where life picks up and begins changing for people.

Each of life’s seasons serves a purpose. Spring feeds into summer, summer produces fall, fall gives way to winter and winter is fulfilled in spring. These seasons also give us wisdom in our personal lives as well.

In spring, new life is upon us. Once dormant seeds now come to life. These seeds bring about new growth in our lives. Whether it is a new job, a new relationship or a fresh beginning in your life, these are the seeds that are coming to life in your spring seasons.

Summer is the activity in those new things. Those once small seedlings are now producing things in our lives. We get to see the fruits of our choices that were made earlier now begin to take shape and impact those around us. This is where we see personal growth take place in our lives.

The fall brings a season of preparation. Fall is the time with the first chill of what is coming, so we prepare. The harvest takes place and we prepare our homes and possessions for storage. The growth and life that was experienced in spring and summer now slows to a crawl before winter. It may not have all the excitement of the previous season of our lives, but fall does have an important part to play as we get ready for another season.

With winter life slows. Things may appear lifeless and hard. Whether in the workplace or the home, winter is one that covers everything. But just because things appear lifeless does not mean that they are. There is more happening beneath the surface than we give credit for. Seeds are germinating, ideas are growing. Life is happening, but just not at a place where you can see it. It is the dormancy of winter that gives the ideas and seeds of spring the needed umph to break forth in their time!

In Ecclesiastes 3:1, the teacher gives a very insightful observation. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven …”

This is a great reminder for us we can get so caught up in the moment of life. We can become so comparative in our journey, we may look at others and begin to compare ourselves to them, becoming envious and more. Yet what we need to recognize is that not everyone is in the same season as you or I for that matter. Someone might be in a spring season and another is in a fall season. Many times we get caught up in this comparison and don’t move forward in the season we find ourselves.

The author of Galatians pointed this principle to us as well when he put it this way in Galatians 6:9: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

What is beautiful here is the admonition to never give up in doing what is appropriate for the season we are in. Let us be mindful of the season that we find ourselves in and to never give up in doing good in that season!

Blessings!

Ryan Quigley is pastor at Albert Lea Assembly of God Church.