The Season of Autumn and Our Spiritual Lives
Seasonal changes bring variety and rhythm to our garden work, the changes in sun exposure and temperature are a recurring pattern year after year.
The harvest has grown from spring through summer to maturity and fruit is ready to harvest before a long winter’s sleep. I look out the kitchen window and see the apples, pears and quinces ripening on the tree and the pumpkins emerging from amongst the leaves as the vines take their last breaths of life before sending all their goodness back into the soil.
The transition from spring (the season of new birth) to the growing season of summer is not a radical adjustment, but the movement from summer’s abundant growth to the changing season of autumn can be more abrupt.
Autumn signals the coming winter when growth (mostly) in the garden comes to a temporary halt. Before we know it winter will be here. We get glimpses of it in the cold morning air and the mist over the hills.
Change can be difficult but our lives have seasons. Change is inevitable just as the change of seasons we see in the weather and the garden.
Read Genesis 8:22 What does it say about the seasons?
As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
As long as the world exists there will be seasons. The Bible says that there is a season, or time, for every activity under the sun. From birth to death, planting to uprooting, building up to tearing down, and crying to laughing, our lives will always be in seasons of change.
Listen to Turn, Turn Turn by The Byrds
This is based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. This is the translation from The Message
There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.
The seasons of life include the years of our childhood as well as our old age, the good times and the bad, victories, sadness and heartache and times of great celebration and abundance.
As I reflect on the seasons of my life there has been excitement, disappointment, despair, adventure, frustration, challenge, joy and achievement. There have been times of unexpected loss but also times of utter bliss.
Each time we experience a turn, a change, it makes us wiser, it increases our faith and can become a point of growth in our walk with God.
Can you think of times when you were confused or even angry about why something was happening to you but then realised at a later time that there was a purpose for it that you couldn’t see at the time?
Read the following scriptures. What do they say about the days in a person’s life?
Job 14:1-2 How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble! We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.
Psalm 103:15-16 Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone – as though we had never been here.
God has a plan for all of us and a timeline for each of us. Our lives are constantly changing. To accept this change we must see the opportunity not just the loss.
Read James 4:13-16 – why are we warned about boasting about tomorrow?
James 4:13-16 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.
What comfort can we find in Paul’s words in Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Listen to these songs and reflect on the seasons in your own life and what God can teach us through these seasons.
