a new season

 

For everything there is a season,
      a time for every activity under heaven.
                                    Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT

Seasons come and seasons go.  Some are warm and soft, spring-like, lovely and nourishing. Others are hard, arid and uncompromising.  Some seasons produce fruit and others are seasons of bare branches, leafless trees and no growth. For the past six months we have been in a season of growth in our personal lives.  As we enter the summer of 2010, we also enter a new season in our life with the Lord.

In the seasons of my life personal growth comes through experience. In this season the experiences have been beyond my ability to record in my journal.  Each one seems to need time to ripen…I need to roll them around in my head, extracting the essence of the lesson before sharing it with anyone. 

When I think about writing in the middle of the lesson, I find myself typing the most absurdly negative stuff.  Negative stuff is so not what I want to keep; to remember. When I write the negatives it does no good…not for me…not for anyone else.

So…July, in my journal, will all be lessons learned, but recorded in retrospect.  I started this post on the 3rd of July. The end of the first paragraph is as far as it went. The rest of the month has been filled with hard lessons, negative thoughts, and blinding realizations.  Today is the 31st of July and I’m just now free to write again.  That means anything posted here between the 3rd and the 31st has been ripening for weeks.  Hopefully, anything I post will be positive and helpful. 

The following quote from Thelma Wells says it all.

“When we become disappointed, angry, frustrated and desperate, Satan can have a field day in our minds. He can load our minds with so much junk that we can’t hear God or won’t pay attention to the Holy Spirit when he’s trying to talk to us.  It doesn’t matter how much we study the Bible, how long we pray, how constantly we praise God, Satan and his demons are waiting for one tiny port of entry into our minds to deceive us.  Satan’s job is to confuse and frustrate us to the point of retaliation, rebellion, disobedience and distrust in God. He is always out to disturb our peace of mind while we are waiting for the manifestation of God’s promises to us.”

In July I have been disappointed, angry, frustrated and desperate! And, my mind has been so full of junk I couldn’t write, or even think straight.  I think this morning my peace has returned.  Thank God he give us peace that passes all understanding, if we will but seek Him.