Our bedroom is on the southwest corner of the house - and that's the direction stormy weather comes from more often than not. So, believe me, we can tell when the weather's changing - especially when the season's changing. Often, in the night, our weather alert system goes off - then the severe thunderstorms come roaring in - the lightning keeps illuminating our backyard - and the wind and rain come slamming into the wall between our bed and the yard. You can sure tell when the season's changing!
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Reason For This Season."
When the season is changing, it's often a pretty turbulent time - in the weather...and in your life. In fact, you may be entering a new season in all or part of your life right now - and it's anything but calm. Things are changing, and you may not be sure how to handle this season you're in.
What we see in nature is a picture of our personal journey on this planet - it's the story of changing seasons. From Ecclesiastes, we know that "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" - and that God "has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11). God has made it clear in Genesis, that "as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease" (Genesis 8:22). So every season is God's idea.
You may be in a wilderness season right now - or maybe it's a season of success - or a season of suffering. It could be this is a season of impossibilities, a season of enlarging your life, a season of uncertainty. In God's great plans for us, we need every season - including the rainy season that isn't much fun. The rain stimulates growth...it relieves droughts. The storm blows away accumulated pollution.
Whatever the season God has you in right now, you might be interested in why you're in it. Our word for today from the Word of God in Deuteronomy 4:34-35 provides a powerful answer. The words of Deuteronomy were given to God's people during a huge change of seasons - their lifetime leader, Moses, is about to die and be replaced by a new guy, they're about to face some massive challenges and battles, and they are about to move from the subsistence of the wilderness to the wealth of the Promised Land. Lots of change - maybe like your life.
Here's God's word to people in changing seasons: "Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?" Notice all those seasons - from times of war to times of testing to times of mighty miracles - but all for one reason: "You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides Him there is no other." There it is - every season is for you to experience God in ways you've never experienced Him before! Every season is to show you that the Lord is your God!
So Moses' prayer in Exodus 33:18 - prayed as God was leading him into a scary new season - turns out to be the prayer for all seasons. "Show me Your glory." Through all that this season is bringing into my life, "O Lord, would you show me Your glory - in ways I could never experience without this season." All seasons are God's seasons - including this one.