There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
When God created the universe, He established definite seasons that His world would annually go through. His natural world would not be static and unchanging. It would be dynamic and cyclical. The cycle of these seasons is determined by the sun and the moon. Each natural season has its own uniqueness, bringing changes in temperature, weather patterns, and environment.
Just as nature goes through predictable cycles, so does life. As human beings, we go through cycles of growth, from conception to birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, old age, and death. In these seasons of life, we each experience physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual change.
Therefore, each season directly influences and impacts the next season. You always reap in one season what was sown in the previous season. “A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7b). What you are now as well as where you are now is the direct result of past sowings in the seasons of your life—by you or by others.
Your season of childhood may have been scarred by many broken relationships. Your early years may be emotionally pockmarked by family violence, divorce, alcoholism, drug abuse, verbal vilification, sexual exploitation, or just parental neglect. Your teenage years may have been spent sowing wild oats from which you are still reaping the consequences. And the result is a lot of wasted seasons of life, painful experiences, damaged emotions, barren years, and negative harvests.
But, my friend, regardless of the season of life you are currently in, God’s grace can intervene if you will give Him complete control. His love “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). His Word assures us that “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20).
If you will give Him this season of your life—starting right now—the next season of your life can be radically different! At this very moment you can begin to sow positive seeds that will result in a future harvest of pleasure rather than pain.
But in order to change this present season of our lives, we must begin by changing our minds. This change of mind is what the Bible calls repentance. If it is authentic repentance, there will be a change of mind that will result in a change of direction and a change of behavior. It will result in a new direction for our lives.
While we cannot change or erase what happened to us in the earlier seasons of life, we can accept full ownership of our response and reaction to what happened to us. And we must begin by accepting God’s unconditional forgiveness. Then we must extend that same unconditional forgiveness to everyone who hurt us—whether intentionally or unintentionally.
You are God’s field. Don’t let it lay fallow and unplanted. Don’t let Satan and the world plant weeds in God’s garden! He wants to make you fruitful in every season of life for His glory and for the good of others. So, “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).