Being Consistent In Season and Out of Season
Before I moved to Florida, the first day of December was fairly inconsequential to me. Now, however, it carries huge significance, not only to me, but to all Floridians. This is the day that officially marks the end of the hurricane season. Although different from my home state of Tennessee, with its winter, spring, summer and fall, Florida also has four seasons: the hot season, the bug season, the tourist season and the hurricane season. Of all the seasons of Florida, the hurricane season is the one us Floridians are most glad to see go.
Like Florida, our souls also have their seasons. For instance, there are times when the Bible is alive in our hand and its words leap off its pages to lodge in our hearts, but there are other times when we peer into the Scripture only to see printed ink on paper pages. There are times when our prayer closet becomes a personal Holy of Holies and God seems to be holding out His golden scepter to our every petition, but there are other times when the heavens are brass and God appears to be deaf to all our pleas. There are times when the still small voice of the Spirit causes our hearts to burn within us and the Spirit’s rushing, mighty wind is blowing in our lives, but there are other times when the voice of the Spirit is eerily silent and the wind of the Spirit is deathly still.
The seasons of the soul are unpredictable, as the Apostle Paul pointed out in Romans 11:33. According to Paul, God’s ways are unsearchable and past finding out. Who’s to say why one is caught up in the river of the Spirit and carried along by its current while another sits in a dry riverbed and suffers the throes of spiritual draught? Though we are prone to attribute the former to impeccable spirituality and the latter to some spiritual deficiency, the seasons of the soul often defy such simple explanation. Even the Prophet Elijah’s brook dried up (1 Kings 17:7).
Instead of attempting to explain the inexplicable seasons of the soul, the Apostle Paul simply charged us to “be instant in season [and] out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). In other words, we should be as faithful in our devotions during the soul’s harsh, cold winters as we are during its warm, reviving springs. By remaining consistent we can continuously flourish as Christians, irregardless of the spiritual weather inside.
Don Walton
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