Knowing Your Season

In Indiana, it is usually pretty easy to tell what season it is. We have four very different seasons. Although it is still summer, you can feel fall creeping in-- school has started, young men are chasing the pigskin under Friday night lights, mornings are cool and people are planning bonfires. Fall will cool into winter, which will give way to spring and warm back into summer. Seasons come and go. 

The seasons of life don't flow so nicely as seasons on a calender. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us of the ebb and flow of life

 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Am I planting? Am I uprooting? How do you know when healing's season is complete? Is it ever complete? What should I build? When and where should I build it? What pebbles need to be scattered? Should I be embracing something that I am not? Should I give up something that I am holding too dearly? Weeping, laughing, breaking, building, love, hate... there is a season for it all. But how can we be sure we know our seasons?

We can pray and ask God for direction. However, we (well at least I) can be resistant to the hardest seasons God brings to my journey. It is not fun or simple to have a season of mourning or weeping... TRUST ME. We could just roll with how we feel, but we may miss what God is trying to lead us into and through. My season right now is probably a mix of all those things.