Seasons

Seasons
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” -Romans 8:28

 Romans 8:28. I’m not sure how old I was when I memorized that one. Not more than six or seven, I guess. It has stood me in good stead through a lot. And in the last few days, it has come up in conversation a time or two.

As usual, I am writing this on Sunday evening. This morning, I wrote in a Facebook post that I am thankful for the gift of adversity. That really is true these days. I suppose it is because I have lived long enough now to look back on a good bit of life and see how God used every circumstance, every struggle, and every hard thing to lead me to now. I plan to live on for a while yet, Lord willing, and I suspect that there will be a few more tough times to look back on, and that I will thank the Lord for that particular challenge.

But as I sit here expecting a sharp change in the weather by morning, I am thinking about it all over again. I am thinking about seasons. I am thinking about how the earth revolves and seasons go around and years go by. Seasons can be bitterly cold or suffocatingly hot or, as Goldilocks put it, “just right.” Here on the Gulf Coast, we can experience all four seasons in a span of about forty-eight hours. I think that might happen this week, in fact. But every season has purpose. As we approach Thanksgiving, the season of harvest tends to be uppermost in people’s minds. Again, it’s a little different here in the warm climes, because we have multiple growing seasons and multiple harvests in a single year.

Regardless of the particular circumstances, we all know what it is like to experience seasons, whether seasons of the year or seasons of life. And like the slow revolution of the earth around the sun, the revolution of our lives also has its purpose. God’s Word promises that in the end, that purpose will be for good. We are not promised that everything that leads there will be good. Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord promise an easy life for the believer. In fact, it’s rather the opposite, isn’t it? Jesus said that we would have trouble in this world. But He also said, “I have overcome the world.” What a comfort that is.

When I explain this concept to students, I usually use the old reliable devil’s food cake analogy. Not everything that goes into a devil’s food cake is good. But put it all together and sweeten it just right, and the result is undeniably delicious. And so it goes with us, too. Sometimes you might have to taste some bitter cocoa or get a little bit of tasteless flour on your tongue. Every now and then, life tastes a bit like a raw egg or a stick of butter. But from time to time there’s a little bit of sugar to keep us hoping and believing, and that’s why we labor on.

I hope nobody’s having a raw egg or plain flour kind of a week this week, but if you are, just remember that there’s some sweetness to this life sometimes. More importantly, there’s eternity to look forward to. And that, my friends, will literally taste divine!

Peace

Jackie