A NEW SEASON!

By Helen Jesze, 1st March 2015

“The Lord said to Himself…While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease,”

Genesis 9, 22 The Amplified Bible

This morning the frost lay white on the roofs of the houses, the car’s windows needed to be scraped, and all day, even though later the sun came out, a chilly wind whistled round the ears of everyone I saw from my window, hurrying home, and into the warm! Spring’s freshness, celandines and colourful bulbs still lie buried in the earth, and are only just beginning to send up small leaves and buds. But from my living-room window I can see radiant golden crocuses, and the white heather by the fishpond has now turned purple. The bright green new leaves which will later appear are still nowhere to be seen on the bare branches of every tree. Yet I know that although Nature has lain dormant through the Winter it is preparing itself to bring us joy again in a very short while, in the coming of Spring.

My husband and I were in Sweden in 1990 when our book “Winning over Worry” was being published in Swedish. After the book launch and a week of teaching at a Bible College outside Stockholm, we travelled with our publisher to various parts of North Sweden to preach in churches. One day, his wife said, “We don’t have any Spring in North Sweden. The Winter is so long and cold, but underneath everything is growing; suddenly one day the ice and snow melt and there are the flowers! But then it’s nearly time for Summer!” I was glad that I lived in a part of Europe where we know the beauty and joy of Spring after the bleakness of Winter. It fills us with a very special joy of living!

Every year does not only have its seasons in Nature, but it also bring new seasons in our life. New opportunities, new challenges, new ways of looking at things and entering into these experiences. This year will bring us new seasons, new chapters which we will write into the book of our life. God is a God of forward-looking, of progress, development, and is leading us to new seasons. He has never been a God of stagnation, of winding down, of giving up in despair. In every year He challenges us to recognise and step into – to embrace – the new seasons He is bringing into our lives.

The new land can never be reached unless we are prepared to lose sight of the old one. We must pull up the anchor and leave the harbour, in order to gain the new shore. Or, to use another metaphor, sometimes God shakes our nest, just like the mother-eagle. When it is time for a new season of flying, she pecks out all the soft feathers and moss, leaving bare branches and thorns. The baby eagles are now very uncomfortable.

Then the mother-eagle lifts out one of her babies and places him on top of the cliff. Before, he was protected, sheltered and fed, now he is exposed to every cold wind; he’s frightened and bewildered. The mother-bird then tips him over the edge and with a wildly-beating heart he dies a thousand deaths as he falls, falls.. but just before hitting the rocks below, she dives down, catches and lifts him up to the clifftop again. She repeats this process until he starts to use those things fixed onto his sides – his wings – and learns to fly. His new season has begun!

Some chapters of our lives we are glad to close; we are happy to enter into a completely different sphere. Other times, we hang back, filled with fear because of the unknown, or fight in rebellion against this newness over our path. If we have given our life into God’s hands, taken His Son to be our personal Saviour from sin, then we can be certain that He will guide us aright.

Yet we all have many chances to help those around us to enter into a new season. Your smile, your handclasp, that letter you feel prompted to write encouraging someone that they’ll make it, that it’s not all in vain! Like the time when I was cleaning the living-room and felt strongly impelled to go to my neighbour. I did not know why and thought she would probably be cooking dinner and would not want to be disturbed.

At last, in obedience to this inward “nudging”, I rang the bell. Several times I rang and was just about to go away when Mary peeped out from behind the net curtains. She opened the door and pulled me in, her face swollen with crying. That morning, she told me about a ‘season’ of great sorrow she had been through, and that day, she had been wondering whether to end it all. We prayed together and Mary realised God knew just where she was. In His love, He had prompted me to come to her.

I think of those who long to enter a new season, but there seems no hope or possibility. The lonely hurting old people, children locked in despair, the mothers who have nothing to feed all those hungry little ones. Fathers, who see no way out and lose their reason in swilling vodka – just to forget. Millions displaced by the horrors of war, the increasing threat of terrorism, no answer to the world’s shaky economy. Those walled up in grey prisons, with no possibility of walking out through those threatening doors – a free man or woman. The sick and dying when the doctor has shaken his head, and said, “We can do no more for you!” The hopelessness and stark terror of those who love them and know there is nothing they can do.

Often we feel the task is so great that the little we can do or give is so small. But I want to encourage you today that when we put our ‘little’ into God’s hands, he can make ‘much’ out of it! What a thrill it is to be able to help someone break through into a new season, and it is so easy to do it! Some of you have visited those forgotten ones in prison or hospital, spoken words of comfort, led them in prayer, helped them find forgiveness and eternal life, seen the light of hope spring up in their eyes! You have given to the hungry, invited someone home, offered to babysit so that a single Mum can have a few free hours …

Make it into an adventure by asking Jesus to show you what you can do this week to usher in somebody’s new season, and I’ll let you into a secret – what you do for others comes back to you! You’ll be stepping into a new season too! Step into new things, into new service. Allow the life and love of Christ to flow through you!

Your new season can begin today!

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thankyou for the joy we have in Nature and the world you have created! Thankyou for your promise of the continuity of the seasons, giving us not just beauty but food and provision to stay alive. Thankyou that you will be with me in every new season of my life, strengthening me for every challenge, filling my heart with joy at your goodness, giving me creative ideas and love to help others enter into their new seasons! I praise your holy Name! Amen.