Blue over autumn browns
September 10, 2007
By William E. Richardson
“To everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NKJV).
Warm summer nights give way to cool, crisp evenings. Grass stops shooting up so quickly and the leaves change color. You knew it was coming. It happens every year. Seasons change.
You also know seasons are changing when that item you’ve been saving your money to purchase is now being sold as the “classic version.” Or when a person you remember as a child actor now looks old enough to retire.
In your home, the son or daughter who used to crawl on the floor in diapers grew up to walk across a stage to receive a diploma and later walked down a church aisle to marry. Now, he or she has a child of their own crawling on the floor in diapers.
What’s more, your bathroom mirror is either lying or needs cleaned. More muscles ache. More bones ache. Sometimes, it hurts to think.
It seems when you went to sleep last night it was summer, but you woke this morning to see colorful leaves falling outside your window. The trees and your bones agree — the seasons are changing, with or without your permission.
Why can’t it still be yesterday? Or last month? Or last year?
Since it isn’t, how can you best use the season of life you have awakened to? How can you not be so blue over the autumn browns?
While you can’t keep the clock from ticking, you can use each hour wisely. The past is concrete; it won’t change. The future is moldable clay. Each hour of every day you haven’t lived is a series of choices yet to be made.
When you tear off the calendar pages in the coming months, you can be glad for the events you set into motion today. Be deliberate. Decide today, do tomorrow, delight in it the next day.
While you can’t deny what you see in the mirror, you can make the most of what each change represents. Experience — that’s the blessing of age. Every experience you’ve lived through is a valuable lesson.
Experience is knowledge in life’s classroom; it’s your edge in the workplace. Because of where you’ve already been, you’re more ready for the journey ahead. While you can’t decide all of life’s colors, you can trust God, the Master Painter. God colors the grass green. He colors the leaves yellow, orange, red and brown. There comes a time when He colors our hair white. That’s OK. He knows what He’s doing.
When the autumn of our lives someday turns to winter, God will welcome us into everlasting springtime. Life’s seasonal changes will never again bother us. No one can be blue when they’re walking on eternally golden streets, forever in the presence of the Lord himself.
William E. Richardson is senior pastor of Afton (Iowa) Assembly of God.
“Let us pray that future generations will receive a fresh revelation of what can be accomplished through the Spirit’s empowerment. May they accept His call to be agents of change in places where corruption and immorality abound.”
“Editor’s Journey: The Triangle of Power,” Hal Donaldson
Today’s Pentecostal Evangel, September 9, 2007
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