By Ife J. Ibitayo
This summer has been glorious. I’ve walked for miles through nature, enchanted by verdant summer flowers and serenaded by chirping thrushes. I’ve exalted in picture perfect sunsets and had many a blissful car ride, wishing the drive would last forever. But like all good things, this summer is coming to an end.
Fall officially starts next month. But we’re already starting to see its signs and feel its effects. Days are shrinking shorter, and nights are growing longer. The bright sunshine is being hidden more and more by stormy clouds and fierce rain. The fiery dragon of summer is slowly being wrestled into submission by the frost giant of winter, and there is nothing we can do to halt its advance.
Seasons are Jarring
Change is always disorienting. We are laid off from one job and start another. We move from the east coast to the west. We transition from the bachelor life to the married life then to the parent life. Even Jesus Himself said, “‘No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, “The old is better'” (Luke 5:39 NIV). Something deeply engrained within us craves constancy.
Seasons are Inevitable
Yet change is a regular part of life. Just as no one stays in college forever and no one remains engaged for fifty years, we all reflexively know that whatever the state of our life today, it won’t last forever.
But I for one get nostalgic from time to time. I look at old photos and see my happy younger self with my friends and family, and I wonder where the “good old days” have gone. As this season of COVID has stretched on, I’ve found myself wondering if it will ever end.
Seasons Are Temporary
The LORD, speaking to Israelites who’d been exiled from their homeland, said, “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘Then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever'” (Jeremiah 31:35-36 NASB).
Just as the Israelites’ exile and dissolution as a nation was a temporary setback, so is our current season. I don’t despair that “winter is coming” because summer is chasing hot on its heels.
Conclusion
King Solomon once said, “For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV). Even though we may hate one season and love another, our appreciation of our favorite season arises from having others to compare it against.
Further, the toughest seasons of our life are often the soil in which God plants the most bountiful seed. We must wait patiently to reap the harvest.
“Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”
(Psalm 126:6 NIV)