Times and Seasons

While enjoying a break near the coast in South-West England recently, I did a lot of walking by the sea with my dog. As I did so, I was struck afresh by the huge volume of tidal water that ebbs and flows twice a day. This is one of many examples of the amazing precision and order of God’s creation when He formed the sun, the moon and the earth.

Of course, the sun and moon were not just created to form the gravitational pull to cause tides. They are there to mark seasons, days and years, as we are told in Genesis 1:14-16: ‘God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.’

Again, we see the precision of God’s creation in the way that daylight never fails to follow the darkness of night, and the seasons come and go. We have now moved from summer to autumn in the UK, and we can appreciate the beauty and variety that each season brings.

We also tend to go through different ‘seasons’ in our own lives. Sometimes it can feel like the beautiful care-free days of summer, when everything seems to be going well in our lives; but at other times we may go through a season that feels more like winter, when nothing much is happening and we feel as if we have been stripped bare, like a tree without its leaves.

However, even in the depths of winter, there is much happening invisibly in the natural world to prepare the trees and vegetation for the spring that is to follow, and the same can be true in our lives as God prepares us for the season that is to come. Be encouraged, therefore, that whatever season you feel you are in at the moment, God knows and is at work.

As we trust God through the changing seasons of our lives, we can also be assured that He has a right time for everything. As the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it in today’s verse, ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven’. We need never be anxious, even when we are nearing the end of our time on earth. We should be like David, who said, “I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:14-15). Be assured that your times are also in God’s hands.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness to me through all the years and changing seasons that I have been through. I trust You for the future, and want to say, like David, “I trust in You; You are my God. My times are in Your hands.” Amen.