The Colors of the Season

It seemed like it just happened overnight. One day the trees were full of green leaves and now golden leaves all over the ground. It seems like I didn’t have time to enjoy the changing of the colors. Now it’s time to rake up all the colors of fall before I ever had time to prepare for the changing of the seasons.  You would think that I would not get caught by surprise anymore but I still am. I will feel the same way when I see the first snowflake of winter. I know no matter how late in the season it will be too soon. The same things happen in our seasons. Looking back things seemed to start off so slow and everything took forever to unfold and before you know it I was learning how to read and write and suddenly I'm teaching my children how to read and write. All the seasons in between happened so fast I hardly realize the transitions.

Now I’m more aware. I have changed focus on my life and I seeing life in the context of eternity. With this perspective I notice the changing of the seasons in my life. I don’t know exactly what is to come but I know change is coming. I will be turning forty this year but that is just a number it has some but little to do with the season. So what’s changing? Well as a father and a husband I am teaching my children now just as my parents had their season to teach me. I am teaching them about Jesus and if I teach them nothing more in this life I know I obeyed the Lord in my most important assignment as a parent. I have embraced God’s instruction to be the spiritual leader in my home and to show the love of Christ by example to my family. Although I fall short, I try and love my wife as Christ loves the church and by the grace of God I am training up my children in the way they should go. I am teaching my family to have a social conscience. I’m helping to equip them to share the gospel and resources. I’m showing them a life outside of ourselves. I make sure they thank God for what they have and making sure they understand that most of the world lives on a small percentage compared to our blessings. I’ve taught them about the persecuted church and as we worship Jesus in our lives in the open we must pray and support our brothers and sisters around the world who are persecuted, tortured, and killed for the name of Jesus.

My season is changing as a follower of Christ as well. I have gone from unsaved to saved over a dozen years now when I accepted Jesus and let him take my sins with him on the cross. Now I am going from the one being ministered to the one God is using to minister to others. Now I am being asked to lead a ministry at church. I know I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. By his grace I will be ready for this season as well. I don’t know exactly what Jesus has planned for the rest of my life. I have small children and my primary mission is to raise them up to fear the Lord, to trust Jesus as their savior and to live a life pleasing to God. God has placed a desire in my heart to minister to the homeless in and around Chicago. I have only acted on this in small ways so far but I have a vision of a ministry to come and I pray for God to make a way, but I know right now is not the season. When my children grow older more and more seasons will come and go. There will be ministries and missions God will call me to and I will serve, in their season. I don’t know how long or how short the rest of this life will be. What I do know is Christ will make sure I am ready for all seasons of this life and my final season in eternity.  Can you feel the changing seasons in your life?