His Appointed Season

God controls the seasons of our lives. He starts and ends a season only to begin another season. It can be a season of chastening, prospering or maturing in His love. Since God is outside of time, a season can last a few days, several weeks or years. But with each season we gain a deeper revelation of His heart.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 describes these seasons as an appointed time. God has an appointed time in our lives where He desires to correct, discipline, strengthen and do a deeper work of trust in our hearts. We must pray in those times to have a willing spirit to listen and obey His voice.

How many believers have been granted a season of grace to deal with the issues in their heart but refuse to hear and heed! No wonder their spiritual lives are so dried and withered. Their prayers fall flat and unfilled. Relationships are strained and at a breaking point. Scripture tells us that the rebellious dwell in a barren land (Psalms 68:6). Israel refused to believe God had the power to bring them in and out of the season of preparation in the wilderness and into the Promised Land. So they were order back in the wilderness where the first generation died never setting foot in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Beloved, we don't have much time to get it right. God is on the move and His heart is with the humble. He listens and speaks to those whose hearts are set on Him. He is not looking for perfect people but those who have prepared their hearts for Him to do whatever He pleases. They hold nothing back from Him. He can mold and fashion them as a skilled potter who creates at His pleasure even if the material is flawed.

Remember seasons are temporary but what remains is a strengthened faith in His power to keep us. Peter writes, "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7, KJV). Trials, suffering, poverty, poor health or whatever difficulty we encounter is working in us a greater, more lasting glory (2 Corinthians 4:17).

At end of Job's trying season it says that the latter part of his life was greater than the beginning (Job 42:12). Beloved, we don't need to grin and bear the season God has appointed for our lives. Rather we must rest in Him as He does His good work and leave the outcome His responsibility. This is after all His appointed season which is not based on our time table, schedule or some five year plan.

Just like Job at the end of the season we will always be stronger, richer in faith and more satisfied than at the first because we see clearly the work of Jesus unfolding as promised, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6, NIV).