It is time for the Cycle to Change:
Gen 8:22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
When it is time for a change, God sends a prophet such as John the Baptist. The scriptures expressed the mission of John the Baptist in John 4:23 “John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.'” In our modern-day, we have heard the voices of those God appointed to herald the shift in the Kingdom agenda. One such person was Dr. Martin Luther King. In his speech, I Have a Dream; Martin Luther King heralded the proclamation that “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood,” which if adhered our nation could have avoided our current painful situation.
God is a God of cycles, seasons, and patterns. According to Genesis 8:22, God promised humankind that while the earth remains, so would the seasons (cycles) of seedtime and harvest. Genesis 8:22 promises that “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer, and winter, day and night shall never cease.” It is important to note that all of God’s creation voices the opinion that cycles of change and transitions are part of God’s nature. There are minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months that compose the cycles we experience each year. It is a pleasant reminder that change is part of the human process.
If you look back over your life, you will notice that you have experienced summers, springs, winters, and falls – cycles of change. Our summers are the hot intense cycles of our lives where we live passionately in pursuit of desires. It is a cycle full of vitality and energy. We often associate young adulthood with summer; however, it is not limited to a specific age but reflects the process where life possesses that which satisfies hunger. Fruit and vegetables are plentiful, and the bountifulness of God’s grace seems apparent.
Often following a cycle of promise and pursuit comes the fall season. Fall represents a season where we count the blessings of seasons past. We harvest the overflow canning and preserving as much as possible. What was heated and passionate begins to wind-down and fall away.
After the earth has released its bounty, it needs to rest. Unlike nature, we have a choice. Cultural expectations often cause us to miss our season of rest and reflection. We must choose to accept the cycle of rest and not allow circumstances to steal from us a season meant to bring healing to our hearts and minds. During this season, it appears that life has diminished within us, but instead, roots are growing deep. We must remain prayerful in the winter seasons, or we will miss its blessing. We must not waste our opportunity to reflect, refurbish, and be revived. What we have gathered in prior seasons must last us until the next spring.
Unless we are in our last winter, spring is going to come. We sense the budding of new beginnings, new opportunities, and new adventures. It is a time that life springs forth, and renewal takes place. There is a sense of hopefulness and anticipation. The springs of our lives might involve a rebirth of a past passion or a fresh new start.
These seasonal cycles in our lives may not show the consistently and rhythmically as we see in nature. However, in observing nature, we learn that God is a God of seasons and cycles. Our summers may last years, followed by a brief falling away and dying out and replenished by months of spring after a winter that seemed to have lasted forever. The pattern of cycles within our lives is complex and replete with life circumstances and human error that impact our existence. We can be sure that Holy Spirit is consistent and present with us as we look to Him during times of transition.
In Due Season:
There is a season that is referred to in the Bible call due season. With each cycle, there is an anticipation for the shift or change. It feels like a waiting period after one cycle ends and another begins. However, even during waiting periods and cycles of winters of rest, God has promised us a “due season.” For example, In Leviticus 26:4, God promises to give “rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.” Deuteronomy 11:14 echoes the same promise for purposes of abundance, “That I [God] will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. God has promised us results if we will trust him in our periods of waiting in our “due seasons.”
What is a due season? It is the appropriate time. God encourages our hearts not to faint as we move through the cycles of our lives. According to Matthew 24:45 and Luke 12:42, a faithful servant and wise servant is responsible for ruling over the master’s household to provide meat in due season. We must be wise stewards and wait on God’s timing. We are not to be hasty in our decisions nor abandon our assignments too soon. Part of an intelligent servant is to understand and trust God’s times and seasons.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 tells us that there is a due season for everything. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What are we to do while waiting in our due season? May, I suggest that we are to do the word of God. We are to be faithful to do the “little things.” We are to live our daily lives in willful love and integrity. We are to work, pray, and worship while trusting and believing in His promises. Waiting is part of living; we wait in lines, we wait for babies to be born, and we wait to become old enough to live as an adult. We wait for God’s timing in our due season.
In the Fullness of Time:
Jesus came in the fullness of time. During the era Christ lived, the master gave tutors and governors a charge to oversee his estate. A tutor had command of a specific person while the governors had the responsibility of managing the estate. A steward was to maintain control of the estate until the designated time by legality; the authorities would turn over the estate to the heir. We read this in the fourth chapter of Galatians verses 1-7:
Now I say that the heir, if he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all,but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born[a] of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, [b] “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir [c]of God [d]through Christ.
There are times our blessings come in the fullness of time after a due length of time has elapsed. The Holy Spirit, acting as our tutor and our steward, oversees us and our inheritance brings us into an ever-increasing revelation of the Father and counsels us in our maturation according to John 14:16-17:
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [c]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever— the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.
We must wait for cycles to shift to bring forth His plan, whether in due season or in the fullness of time. According to Isaiah 1:19, if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. When God has made us a promise either through His word or in our hearts, it requires a willing and obedient heart to see God’s will prevails in our lives. According to John 1:16, God has appointed each of us a share in his grace and spiritual blessings. For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received [all had a share, and we were all supplied with] one grace after another {and} spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing {and} even favor upon favor {and} gift [heaped] upon gift (John 1:16 AMP).