“Seasons”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

The late Dean of Black Preachers, Dr. Gardner C. Taylor once said, “Life is a series of partings.” Such is life, a series of meetings and partings. On this past week NBA Superstar, Kobe Bryant, announced his retirement after 20 seasons of basketball with one team, the LA Lakers. He expressed these words: “My heart can still take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind. But my body knows it’s time to say goodbye. It’s all I have left for this season.” The critical question to answer is, “How do you adjust to changing seasons in your life and know when its time to say goodbye?”

The writer of Ecclesiastes says, Ecclesiastes 3:1 – To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. “Times and seasons” are a regular part of life, no matter where you live. God is at work even in the most difficult experiences of life and He let’s us know when it’s time to move on. Consider these three thoughts:

God Works In Seasons

God has certain seasons for certain settings and situations. There is a season to be fruitful (Psalm 1). There is a season for elevation (I Peter 5-6). There is a season for heaviness (1 Peter 1:6) to develop your faith. Jesus even had a season in the wilderness. For forty days and forty nights, according to Matthew 4, He was tempted by the devil. There is even a season to speak up against what is wrong in the world as Paul told his young preacher Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2.

God Appropriates The Time

There is a right time and a wrong time. The author in Ecclesiastes 3 gives 14 examples of the right and wrong times. For instance he says, “There is a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to kill and a time to let live,” and so on.

God Has A Purpose

 God has purpose for everything, even our painful seasons. God permits seasons of pain for a divine purpose. Pain has a purpose. The devil promotes painful seasons for our gloom but God permits painful seasons for our growth. The devil delivers painful seasons for our destruction but God permits painful seasons for our development. There is a season and time and purpose under the heaven. The Problem is three-fold:

1. Not knowing when your season for change has come.
2. Holding on to one season too long.
3. Not being prepared for the season God has designed for you.

Rests assure that getting to a new season requires ending the old one. How do you prepare for the changing season in your life and know when its time to move on?

1. Be Spiritually Sensitive: Respond to the Spirit to recognize the Season – know when its time to move on. John 14:26 (KJV) ²⁶ But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
2. Be Strategically Stationed: There are times you must change your environment and your friends to get where God wants you to be.
3. Be Purposefully Prepared: “It is better to be prepared and not have the opportunity that to have the opportunity and not be prepared.”
4. Be Peacefully Patient: Psalm 27:14 – Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

Perhaps, you are in an uncomfortable place in life right now. It could be that God is telling you its time to move on.

Be Encouraged!

Dr. Oscar T. Moses