New Season

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up 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 together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast 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 for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

     Not long ago, I mentioned that this is somewhat of a pivotal year for me. My oldest child turned 13 in January. My youngest will turn 10 in August. My husband and I will both turn 40 this year. What I see facing me this year is a very new season. I no longer have little kids. I am no longer a young woman. By the end of this year, my job--the raising, teaching, and training of my children--will have moved past the half-way mark in its implementation. That is a little scary to me. I have made so many mistakes, but I am reminded that God can redeem anything and everything that I surrender to Him. And so I do... I surrender. My children are not mine: I am a steward. It is mine only to obey, and when I fail, to repent and get back up and try again, always first humbling myself before the Throne of Grace and finding the mercy and help that I need to continue.

     So I spent some time looking back. I saw so many seasons where I kept my kids unnecessarily busy when it would have been better to sit down together and play a game or go on a walk or just lay in the grass and look for cloud animals. I see myself,  an angry, sharp-tongued mother when all my children needed was help and encouragement. I see myself worrying overmuch about some things and not enough about others. I see the roots of some of the heart issues I am now dealing with in my oldest child standing out clearly in the stark glare of hindsight. I see fear that pushed me into decisions that I regret, and insecurity keeping me stuck in situations I should have removed myself or my family from. I see impatience with my husband, impatience with my children, impatience with others. Further back, I see sickening sins, a life of confusion and chaos, a life given over to self, even brooding on self to the point of depression. As I look back, I see a whole host of mistakes trailed out on the path behind me, some still bitter, some sweet reminders of the Lord's redemptive power and incredible, undeserved grace.

     I now look forward and think about what we will do, Lord willing, in the future. What items on our agenda have we done simply because we have always done them that way? Are they useful, beneficial, spurring growth? More importantly, are they bringing us closer to God or distracting us from Him? Are they stimulating Godly thoughts, characteristics, and desires in our hearts, or are they encouraging focus on the cares of the world or on the approval of men? I have to ask these questions personally as well as for my home school. We have done many good things, but this year I find myself asking God, "Yes, Sir, but what is best? What is Your will? What must I do and what must I leave behind?"

     The answers are not always easy to hear. However, it has been my experience with God that the more wholeheartedly I obey, the more peace I have. It is only when I have wandered astray from His will  or struggled against it, or when I have failed to take every thought captive in obedience that I find myself in inner discord. Knowing that, as I look back on the wreckage of poor decisions, what decisions will I make tomorrow? Will I run ahead, risking running helter-skelter down the wrong path? Will I dawdle and lag behind, missing the intensity of seeing my Father in action?

     In this new season, too, I hope to put an end to fluctuations, or as Paul calls it, being "tossed to and fro by the waves." No longer do I want to go through some form of spiritual ebb and flow; Iwant only to grow closer to the Lord, not fall back from Him.

    It strikes me as I write this that our Christian walk is the only real area we will talk of growth on one hand and "backsliding" on the other. If a child or a plant stops growing, we do not say they have "backslidden" and will soon make it up. We are concerned about disease or failure to thrive, we run tests, we try to find the problem and correct it, or if it is a plant, we give it a little time and then we uproot it and cast it away. However, in our spiritual walk, we will talk of growth when it is convenient to do so and then talk about waxing and waning at times when we are not experiencing growth. I am afraid I have been guilty of this too many times, this spiritual failure to thrive when all I was really doing was indulging sin.

     For myself, I am no longer content to talk of  my pride and selfishness as merely times I am not as close to God. I want to address them as they are: sinful states of distraction from which I must repent and come back to His side, no longer excusing them because I am only human. Of course I am only human. That is why Jesus died--so that I could be saved from this  hopeless state. It is why I must now always, relentlessly, repeatedly come before the Throne of Grace, abide in Him, and take every thought captive to obey Him. I believe it is possible to live a life that reflects growth and surrender. Why? Because His Word says it is possible set the mind on the Spirit, to walk according to the Spirit, to live with Christ once I have died with Him. I want to move forward, to press on, to grow, and in doing so I want my children to learn to do so as well.

     For me, I pray that this new season will be one of growth and greater humility. I want my life to exhibit continual and obvious increase of the fruit of His Spirit. I want my responses to be Godly and thoughtful, my reactionary tendencies to be reigned in, my entire being given over to Him. I desire to be more loving, more thoughtful, more humble, more of a servant and less self-serving. I long not to be in a hurry, to take the time to develop and encourage my children's hearts and hunger for God. I want to invest in people, to help the poor and needy, to spend time with my family.  I hope to be a better wife, a better mother, a better disciple--in short, I hope to become more Christlike. As I enter this new season of my life, I see a time for putting aside all things that hinder the race and for diligently training for eternity, no matter what the cost.

     As a matter of fact, it has long been this time. I have just been slow to see it.

"No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." And he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, 'Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?' And he answered him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 

Luke 13:5-10