Month: March 2015

Seasons And Times

“The seasons come, the seasons go, we get a little sunshine, rain and snow. Just the way that it was planned to be.”

Isn’t that a profound and true to life statement? It’s the first verse in a song I loved as a very young lady. To me the song contains a good reminder that the wisdom of God can be found in unusual places. The phrase reminds me a lot of a similar truth found in scripture …

Ecclesiastes 3:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Do you see that “time” is very important?  And now, because we are in a shift of times and seasons there’s a need to seek deeper. The path is narrowing, we have need to pray and listen closely.

From the beginning of time God set the order of the seasons in place and it has never changed. The world goes on as he allows, but the spiritual man learns kingdom times and seasons. And seeks to know the game changer and season changer.

Personally, I’ve lived a long life and I’ve lived through many season changes. Of course I’m talking about in the natural order, but also in life season cycles. The troubles and trials of life come upon all of us. And just as troubles come, there are sweet times of joy and wonderful cycles of life to celebrate. Times to mourn through and times to dance through. Times to hate the bad and times to love the good. We gain and then we lose. We keep and we cast away. And no human being can escape this natural order of life. I think we’re all a lot alike. There are some things I like better in one season than I like in another. We welcome the new season in and then after awhile we tire of the imperfections in the current season and we’re ready to welcome in a new one. This is the natural God orchestrated rule of the seasons of the earth and weather patterns.

However, very often season changes are ushered in by drastic life changes.  Some season changes are not to our liking, we’ve enjoyed a time to laugh and suddenly we’ve encountered a new season which is not so laughable. In fact, there’s a time for weeping upon us.  We have to bow low and confess that we are poor and naked and needy of his enabling wonders. We need deep grace and time to adjust. Grace me for this new place, Lord!

Purity of thought is needed so that we can know and follow Jesus only.  Some have a zeal for God but “not according to knowledge.” We don’t want to follow some who are headed for ditches.

Therefore, we have a need to seek a new fire and a deeper walk as we go, because  as God’s people we’re blessed with the heavenly privilege of access to the knowledge of God. He wants to teach us wisdom to follow his times and seasons.

Isaiah 28:
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. 10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. 12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

If we will learn deep and cultivate hearing ears and willing hearts we will in time become a refuge to others. We will realize the reality of life in the flow of his river of love.

Isaiah 30:18
And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

He is our Almighty God and He has all power over the depth and duration of hard seasons. His desire is to work with us so that we can learn how to co-operate with him. As we seek His counsel he will build wisdom and endurance and we can walk through our sufferings with grace. The word talks about “long suffering with joyfulness”  And as we grow in Him soon the difficult times of trials will become stepping stones into a more abundant life. As we grow bolder in God we can even laugh our way through.

There’s just no end to the wonders available to us in God! For the sincere disciple there’s no end to our hope. It keeps increasing more and more. He is always near and waiting for us to respond to his love with our willing and submissive prayers..”Yes, Lord, show me your way everlasting. Help me to delight in doing your will.”

 “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”…Revelation 5:12-13

An Altar Of Thanksgiving

This is a few of my personal memories and lessons about life, death and growing in grace. I’m a widow, and since my husband died in July 2011 I’ve spent some time reminiscing about all of these things. And about old pleasures we enjoyed together. He passed on after a long battle with cancer and I’ve been coming through some seasons of re-adjusting to life alone. He had lived 73 years when he passed, and he was able to enjoy about 10 years of retirement and rest after working as a plumber for over 40 years. My memories were hard to deal with for quite awhile, but gradually Father God brought healing and grace to my heart and life and helped me to look back on some of these old days with pleasure. And on new lessons being learned from them. This is an altar to the Lord for thanksgiving for all the goodness he has shown to us over the years.

For the last few years we lived in a small place on the lake and we enjoyed feeding the birds and whatever animals came around. He loved dogs and he would adopt stray dogs who came around looking lonesome and hungry. I remember about 3 dogs who would come and eat and then after awhile they would wander off somewhere again. We had one neighbor dog who showed up regularly. If a couple of days went by and he didn’t come, Bill would worry about him. But he never stayed away long. Mostly though, the bird watching and feeding became a real source of pleasure for us. We saw redbirds, mockingbird, grackles, blackbird, bluejay and dove. And the dove were our favorite bird. Bill was a man who had a trust in the Lord and who was learning a little more about relationship and prayer. We loved the old song “On The Wings Of A Dove” and one day I sang it to him as we sat there on the porch talking about God.

Hear song…

The song really touched his heart and he began to connect the coming of the dove with God bringing them as a sign of his love. And I thought so too. He always credited the Lord for the way he put feed out and so many dove would gather.

peace

In the driveway across from our house we would scatter seed and flocks would come and feed. This was a flock of about 30 dove. There were several varieties of the native birds that came and occasionally we saw white dove.

1dove

They would come a few at a time and gather on the phone lines and in the trees. They would sit there for awhile and then few would swoop down and start feeding and the others would follow.  The picture of the dove on highwire here is off the web. We didn’t have quite this many, but we loved watching the lines to see how many would perch there.

highwire dove

After he died the dove just quit coming. For a very long time I saw few. After he passed I kept putting seed out and I would watch and never could understand why. I kept talking to all my family about how strange this was to me. Then one day as I sat on my porch thinking about this, I had a thought, more like a voice saying “Don’t be lonesome for dove.” Finally I began to understand that God was using the dove as a blessing to him and as lessons to us both. But times and seasons change as we go, and it was time to begin a new season. I was learning to stop longing for things that had been and yielding to the Lord as I was learning how to adapt to a new season. God has been rebuilding my life and I have come to a new place of joy and contentment in my new life alone. I still think often of these sweet days but my grief has been dealt with and I no longer yearn to live in them. I’m learning that we are not to become dependent on a man, a blessing, a season but on our Father and his present day words alone.

Now I see new horizons and I’m excited!  The thoughts of how I’ve seen him do such mighty things in the past keep me fired up for what he has yet to do. I’m not at all sure exactly what the future holds but I know I will delight in it as long as I hold fast to his hand.

If we will watch and stay alert God will always speak to us. He speaks in many ways, through His creation, song, story, his holy bible and through others. And he speaks personally face to face with all who seek to know him as their one source of all good things. …Thank you Father for this great new season of new life..

today

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