Savouring Each Season

I had a few thoughts running through my mind the other day while I was having a conversation with a friend, I’m going to share those thoughts with you today.

My friend is not going through a very good season right now in her life – she basically doesn’t like the place where she is at right now and she was just pouring out her heart to me basically. All I could think about was ‘I wish I could do something about this, something to get you out’ – but then I realized she’s in one of those seasons where she can’t just be pulled out, but has to go through it. You know like the seasons of the year; we can’t just pull ourselves out of winter just because we want to be in summer, we’ve got to wait for winter to come to an end, there’s no way around it.

Then I started thinking about myself. A few years back when I was in high school, all I wanted was to go to university, while in university, all I wanted was to graduate and get to the next stage. Then I wanted to leave my country so bad and experience the world and now I can tell you there are things I’m eager to experience too. However, when I look back now, those things I wanted to be done and over with so much, I actually wish I had just lived more in those moments and not just rushed through them. I think about the time I had together with my family and friends in the same place and I realize I might not get to have many of such moments anymore. Right now having just one week together with my family will be such an amazing treat!

In life we go through different seasons – some bad and seemingly unbearable and others really good and enjoyable. We go through seasons of joy and seasons of sadness, seasons of distress and seasons of peace, seasons of abundance and seasons of lack, seasons of rain and seasons of dryness… and the list goes on and on. Whatever season we find ourselves in – no matter how difficult it is, I’ve learned that we need to savour each season because there’s something to be gotten out of each season that’ll be of help to us in the next. How do you do this?

• Learn Every Lesson

Through every season, there are lessons to be learned. Lessons that’ll make you better and stronger at the end of that season. Also, every lesson you learn will not be of help to you only, but to many others. That’s one reason why God lets us go through different seasons. If you’re going through a season of joblessness, maybe one lesson God’s trying to teach you is tenacity and persistence. If you’re going through a season of happiness and joy, maybe a lesson He’s trying to teach you is appreciation and thankfulness. There’s always a lesson to be learned, look out for it and make sure you learn it because you’ll need it as some point.

• Gather everything you’ll need for the next season

Through the different seasons, there are certain things you should gather and keep because later you’ll need them. These could be resources, character traits, relationships or something else. When Joseph was made prime minister in Egypt if he wasn’t wise enough to store up food during Egypt’s season of abundance, a lot of people should have died and suffered for this during their season of lack. If your going through your season of singleness now, maybe it’s time to gather patience, tolerance, wisdom and other character traits that will be of help to you in you season of marriage. Whatever the season is, ask God what he needs you to get from it and keep for the next one.

• Make sure you’ll have no regrets when you look back

Finally, get the most out of each season. Make sure when you look back you’ll have no reason to regret and wish you had done something different. Make sure you don’t look back and wish you had learned a lesson you didn’t or wish you had gathered something you didn’t. Just live out each season to it’s fullest because there’s nothing you can do to cut it short anyway. A pregnant woman has no choice but to wait 9 months, when you get on a train, you can’t jump out of it until it comes to a halt. Trying to cut any of these seasons short will only bring harm to you.

I know some seasons are going to be really difficult – I have been through some and I know some more are still ahead of me. However, I know such seasons will not last forever and I’ll surely get out of them. While I go through them I hope to get everything God wants me to get out of them. So I’m learning to savour each season with patience, endurance and Faith in God.