The Seasons: They Are A-Changin’ by Scott Dunn
Words matter. How many times have you heard that or even said it? How many times have you listened to someone say, ‘We are in a difficult season.’ Or some derivative of that phrase? If you are like me, the answer is countless times. There is a good reason that we as Christians use the idea of seasons when we speak about the period that we are in, in our lives. This idea of seasons serves two distinct purposes, and I will get to them but let us cover how broadly seasons are used in the Bible. God introduces us to seasons at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 1:14 (ESV) we read, “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,’”—In this way, God establishes that all life on Earth exists in a constantly changing environment. He designs His creation to adapt and evolve. God establishes the temporariness of rules in the Bible. In Daniel 2:21 (ESV) we can read, “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; —In doing this, God gives us a clear message that power, given to humanity over one another, is temporary and was not meant to establish reigns of terror. Anything outside of God’s will is an aberration and can lead to sin. Jesus himself tells man clearly that we are not meant to know the entirety of God’s plans, and He explains it using seasons in Acts 1:7 (ESV), Jesus responds to the apostle’s inquiry of when the kingdom of Israel will be restored, “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.’”— God makes it clear He is sovereign.
Lastly, God gives us great comfort in one of the Wisdom Books in the Bible. In fact, an entire chapter is dedicated to the temporariness of our humanity here on Earth. I will give a snippet, but all of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 speaks to this seasonal design in our lives. We read this from Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (ESV), “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;”—In this way, God gives us both reality that painful times do occur, but great hope that joyful things are returned, and we are not locked into a spiral of discomfort. Seasons are designed by God and intentionally implemented in our lives for two distinct purposes. The first is a no-brainer because God has created a wide range of life, all with various purposes (Why wasps, though?), and those creatures operate life based on the changes of the seasons.
Birds migrate when the seasons are changing. Bears go into hibernation. Humans clear off the grocery shelves of bread, milk, and toilet paper when a blizzard is coming. God’s creations do some interesting and quirky things when the 24 | M AG A Z I N E N A M E PAGE 23 3
