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Have you ever noticed that when seasons change they never happen quite exactly as you were expecting? I was struck this past week about the amazing difference in our weather. It has been running in the high seventies and even a couple days in the eighties. It was a glorious pattern. Then a weather front affecting Canada changed all that by pushing a cold front into Michigan and we dropped to the fifties! We went from glorious sunny warm lovely days to windy, rainy damp days in a blink. "I didn't even have time to get out my warm clothes", I whined to God. I started off this new weather pattern with a bad attitude, just to be honest I was bummed. Then I started asking myself why I was bummed. Its not like I didn't know change was coming, I sensed it, I knew it was ahead. It was then I realized I was upset because it didn't happen the way I thought it should. My expectations were that I would see small steps toward change, be able to adjust and still hold on to the current season just a little longer. As is so often, God had other plans.
How many times do we find ourselves facing this dynamic in our spiritual walk? You sense that God is speaking a season of change to you but you linger in the old season, being comforted by the comfortable warmer weather. We cannot embrace the new without letting go of the old. We also cannot transition into the new if we confine it to the box of our expectations. If we are truly sensing that God has change for us we need to lay everything on the altar and allow God to unfold the new as He sees fit.
As for me, I have begun noticing the beauty of this season. God is faithful to show you signs of what He is doing if you are just open to hearing His voice. I was driving to work the other day and was just awestruck by this little copse of trees that were lovely. The trees to the left had turned a brilliant red, the middle remained a vibrant green and the trees to the right were a golden yellow. It was almost as if it was one tree that God had painted with a brush dipped in rainbow colors. It was a perfect picture of Fall. How often do I miss these signs in my spiritual walk because I fail to open my heart to receive them?
I am encouraged to embrace this season and to watch God unfold it like a beautiful tapestry both in the physical and the spiritual. God is faithful and I know I can trust Him with the change!