The Secret for the Seasons

August is here and that means one thing: we are inching our way towards fall! As per usual, we've had a busy and exciting summer discipling and bonding with our students. We've done all sorts of awesome things like: Journey camp, VBX, paint wars, a slumber party at our house with my 9th and 10th grade Sunday school girls, lake day with the high schoolers, island camping trip with the middle schoolers (this would be the one event I did not attend this summer because, well, CAMPING), day trip to Charleston, Ryan's weekly Bible study, my Bible study, and on top of all that… Ryan’s full-time seminary workload!

Nevertheless, Ryan has done a wonderful job balancing his many roles this summer and continues to amaze me as he leads and serves in so many different ways. We are both worn.slap.out but so grateful, honored, and humbled that THIS is the life and mission field God has called us to. We've got a back to school party coming up next week and that will round out summer 2014. Which brings me back to my first statement: fall is almost here. Which means summer WILL NOT last forever. (Insert praise hands emoji here.)

God, in His sovereignty, planned the calendar and seasons in perfect fashion. Just like the weather, His people change and come in and out of seasons of life. God has us in this particular season on purpose, for a purpose and knows just how much summer, fall, winter and spring we need. We cannot will ourselves into a different season (weather or otherwise) no matter how hard we try. But we CAN glorify Him today, exactly where He has us, and trust that the Creator of the universe is weaving our current season {of grieving, waiting, rejoicing or whatever it may be for you} into the beautiful tapestry of our lives. 

In my late teens and early twenties, I got really good at wishing and planning for the next season of my life. Never truly content with wherever I was at the time and always yearning for something just out of my reach. It was hard to understand at the time, but at 4 months shy of 28, I can look back with better spiritual vision and clearly see that the Lord was teaching me to be solely dependent on Him during those years.  

This summer, the Lord has reminded me all over again that there is something new to be learned in every season. He has all but written in the sky for me a very wise reminder from the apostle Paul: 

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  (Philippians 4:11-12)

Next to Jesus, Paul is my favorite Bible figure. This man experienced nearly every form of persecution possible, yet the words of his mouth and the meditation of his heart from a prison cell in Rome was: I have learned to be content.  

Paul seemingly mastered this concept as we see him write the same thing again in his pastoral epistle to Timothy, whom he mentored, saying “godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6) Paul didn’t need anything else. He didn’t know what his future held but he knew Who held his future… and he was content with that. The same is true for us. We may not know what is next to come, but we know Who will meet us there and THAT IS ENOUGH. 

The harder we chase after contentment in desires that are NOT of God (status, attention, affirmation, possessions, money, selfish motives, our own fleshly desires), the more discontent we will become. Ultimately, His sovereign grace aligns our heart’s desires with His and we find He is always what we are searching for anyway. 

So what do we do when we feel like our life is perpetually summer? Abide with Him. Be faithful in little so we can be faithful in much. All the while, the Vinedresser strengthens and prunes us so that, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2) Pruning in this season means abundant fruit in the next. But not until we are attached to (and content with) the Vine.


Like the apostle Paul, we continually learn the “secret” to life is being content in Jesus alone-- not Jesus+something else. When we find our satisfaction in Christ, our love for Him deepens and blossoms as winter turns into spring and spring turns into summer... 

...Fall will come right on time, when He finds we are ready for it.

From our Charleston trip on Tuesday

((Isaiah 58:11))

“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”