A Time and a Season

[HKHaugan]

A Time and a Season

 When I was in college, I ran track. I was a distance runner and had to run every day to get ready for track season. Each day called for a routine of early rising, classes, study time, exams, afternoon practice and working at night in a shipyard. When the first meet of the season came, the usual nervousness set in. You stand on the track ready to start, waiting for the starter’s gun to go off. It’s all about time; the time it takes to run a race, the times along the way in the race and the timing you learn in each moment. In those specific moments you can feel the aloneness of life, the need to pace yourself, to make sure you move at a pace that leaves enough strength and air to finish. While you are running, you’re aware every step counts, every moment is a self-conscious trial. In the mile and two-mile events, you are trained to count the time it takes to run each quarter and maintain a pace that will win the event. Many races come down to the seconds os pacing is important. You know you’re having to do the best you can keeping up in the pack. Into the race the inner pain mounts, breathing is rapid and you pant for every breath. It was the last lap that hurt the most. You give it everything you have. For me it was not about winning but about doing it, accomplishing a personal goal and winning if I could. I did letter and got the sweater.

 What’s the point in this little vignette? There was a time for everything, a season for every activity, all the things it took to train, the moments of coaching, the moments in training, the moments in the meets, the moments in work and study. Each of them were in a season that covered my activities. I was in a college season, a track season, a growing season, a maturing season, a preparation season. But I was also in a personal season having to make moment-by-moment decisions that would demand patience, self-discipline, determination, obedience and fortitude. These are seasonal qualities that cover the ‘every-thing’ of life. Our personal life is a season that has a beginning moment and an end moment. Here’s what the writer of Ecclesiastes had to say about time, things and seasons:

 “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God. I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.”

 Every moment is a time and activity happening within a season. If we keep those two in a spiritual context then we are have day-to-day choice-times in a spiritual season. The spiritual season for us is our relationship with God in Jesus. He provides the Holy Spirit as our seasonal cover through the choice-moments He has given for us to live in His spiritual reality. For everything, that is every ‘thing,’ a choice has to be made, He gives us the fruit of the Spirt in which a gift operates in the moment of choice.

 Think of it this way. God’s grace, love, truth make up the season that covers our personal existence in order for the choice-moments to love or avoid, to serve or to hesitate, to give or pass by, to believe or to rationalize and justify ourselves apart form God. Whenever we have a choice to make that is a specific time. Upon what seasonal qualities are we depending to make our choices?