A New Season

In Ecclesiastes the Word of God says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for everything under heaven..."  (3:1)  As I reflect back on the seven years and five months that I have been here on the farm and away from the church life which was the norm for nearly forty years, I realize that I have indeed moved into a different time and a different season.  I do not and have never thought of these retirement years as the final season or the last time of my life, but one that is just radically different.  The white shirt and tie has been replace by blue jeans and work shirts.  The hurried life has been replaced by a slower one. 

 

One of the things learned here on the farm in these seven plus years is that there really is a time and season for everything.  I have never felt a need to look back at the decision to move from the church to the farm, from the pulpit to the tractor, from being viewed as one who works to one who does not. It was time.  It was time to move into this season of my life.  No change is ever easy and it is often something other than what was expected.  This is certainly true about my faith journey.  So much of the structure I built around it and which I thought to be necessary for life with God has been torn down.  And what has surprised me has been the way the guilt I experienced as it was happening has been replaced by a deeper awareness that life with God is about grace.

 

There is a time for all those things mentioned by the writer of the Word in that third chapter of Ecclesiastes, but never think that it is a complete list.  It is a list that points us forward into the limitless life to which God is seeking to lead us.  The road down which God leads can only be described as surprising and unpredictable.  And as I travel it in these days I have learned that is often enough to simply pray, "Lord, have mercy," and to be deeply grateful for grace that continues to be poured out in an overabundant manner.  It is such a season.