Respect Your Seasons

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Oftentimes we find ourselves in a rush to make something happen, to hit our targets. Subconsciously, we even get into competition in a bid to be like or perhaps even better than other people who have been able to accomplish what we presumably consider to be significant. This is usually because we tend to think we are out of time and cannot help being over-haunted by this mindset of "If someone else can do it now, it means that I also can!" Now, please don't misunderstand me here; this mindset is 100 percent good to possess, and I totally agree to it as well.

But then there is something called "season". You find that the word itself is often mainly used by people who live or work in a periodic kind of environment, such as farmers, expectant mothers, those who own seasonal businesses, and the like. Such people, for example farmers, will frankly tell you that not every time is harvesting time, and definitely not every time is planting time. It is very possible that one farmer could be harvesting in one season while another is just planting or weeding or just preparing the ground.

According to hunker.com, a bean plant under good conditions takes about 8 - 10 days to germinate, and a coffee plant takes about 6 - 8 weeks, according to coffeesearch.org. So, it would be pathetic for a coffee farmer to begin competing (or should I say envying?) a bean farmer when the beans start germinating before the coffee, because these are two completely different plants, with totally different gestation periods. And, needless to say, their growth seasons too are altogether different; meaning that the two farmers cannot harvest at the same time.

In the Bible (1 Samuel 6-16), Hannah was teased a lot by her co-wife, Penninah, just because she (Hannah) could not bear children. The same story applies to the two sisters, Rachael and Leah in Genesis 29:17, as they "competed" about who could bear (a) child(ren) for their husband, Jacob. Rachael even reached the extent of giving in her maid to sleep with her husband, just so she could get at least a child that would be attributed to her (Rachael), despite her barrenness.

Also, looking at the story of how David was anointed to be king at the tender age of 17 (1 Samuel 16:13); being that his season had not yet fully come, it had to take him some 20 good years of serious training in order to build a strong character as a king-to-be. He had to go through the right conditions (tough ones for the most part) in order to get his personality built up from that of the shepherd boy that he was, to one of a fully competent leader.

I'll give you another example: my best friend, who is also a writer (not to mention that he's actually the one helping me with the editorial work on my articles) does poetry for the most part of his writing. A few months ago, he was suffering from a long-stayed writers block, which kept bothering him so much that he talked about it almost every time we met. At the same time, however, one of our good friends, who is also a poet, was releasing hit after hit of amazing poetry pieces almost every other day, so my boyfriend kept comparing himself to him and saying, "See how he's releasing all those deep punchlines almost everyday, when me I've totally failed to come up with anything for several weeks now."

One day, when he said that during one of our long late-night calls, I smiled and calmly told him, "Honey, it's alright; I'm sure this is just a matter of time. Remember a few months ago when you were writing nice poems almost every day as you were preparing to release your very first poetry collection, Voices Of May? Don't you think he felt the same way about you as you feel about him now, since he wasn't releasing any nice pieces back then? So, don't worry much about it; I'm sure you too will soon blossom once again."

After that call, he felt deeply relieved, having understood that this condition was just a matter of time. And I can only tell you that eventually his writers block left and he was able to write other amazing poems again. And until today, he tells me that whenever he slumps into a writers block (like all writers do, I guess), he simply feeds his mind on the memory of the words we shared back then.

In the same light, therefore, respect your season and all the things it comes with. Always remember, like the late Dr. Myles Munroe said, that life was not designed to be a sprint, but rather a marathon. Meaning that what matters is not getting there before everyone else, what matters is being able to get  there, and that involves a lot of perseverance through the process.
Your time to sprout and blossom will eventually come. There is a golden point in time that has your name nicely scribbled on it, so keep working, keep believing, keep praying and don't give up on waiting, because God surely makes everything beautiful in His time.

Thank you so much for reading, see you back again next week and please don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments, and to share this article with someone else you think it could bless. Cheers!!!

-By Crystal April