The Seasons of Life

As I watch the leaves changing color outside, I look forward with dismay to the cold winter months ahead. I don’t like winter, but I know that it is a good thing. It renews the plants – and perhaps even us – in anticipation of spring. All life has seasons, periods of warmth and cold, periods of spurts of growth and periods of laxing, periods of a happy green and periods of a dull brown. What’s interesting to watch, however, with the passing of many seasons, is that all life grows – or at least it’s meant to. And it has a purpose.

I think it would be worthwhile if we thought a bit, about the lives that don’t seem to grow, or seem to have no purpose. Why not?

There are some plants which grow rapidly in the spring because they have only a single summer to grow, blossom, and spread their fruits for future generations. Then they die. These plants may seem to have not reached a maturity as other plants because their life was so short, but each did have, in fact, a complete life. Growing, blossoming, and spreading fruit for the future, they accomplished in a season what many others take many years to accomplish. There is nothing wrong with the length of a life, long or short, if it accomplishes life’s goals.

A few plants are meant to come back for many summers, but sometimes they struggle. Cold, disease, or maybe just bad soil cause them to be stunted in their growth, or maybe even not grow at all for years – but then a sudden dose of fertilizer and it’s like the difficult period never happened, as they grow rapidly, seeming to make up for the time lost. Then they bloom like you never thought they would, and they almost seem to stand out in their beauty, since we had so little expectation of them. Despite their many years of seemingly wasted existence, their final accomplishments made up for all their weaknesses – they accomplished their life’s goals, even if not in the planned or “conventional” manner. I think of people like Chuck Colson, once derided and now admired.

And finally there are a few plants look just great their whole life, growing and greening prettily every year, but they never produce a bloom or fruit. For all their growth, they produced nothing and when their death inevitably came, after a time there was nothing to suggest they ever existed. Whatever beauty they may have had, whatever superficial benefits they gave to the garden, in the end all they did was use up the nutrients of the soil. They contributed nothing.

Every human being participates in the seasons of life. Like the plants, they are meant to grow, and spread fruit for the future, whether through children or wisdom. Every human being is MEANT to exist, and each is created uniquely, with a purpose for itself – to bloom, and a purpose for the future benefit of all children of God, and most specifically for their own soul.

How long we live isn’t really important; some plants accomplish everything in a single season. It’s the same for humans, so our clinging to life and wanting to GET AND KEEP things is irrational. The very fact that we are meant to grow means that we shouldn’t be struggling to get and keep – because we out-grow things, from our clothes in our early life, to our self-perceived “wisdom” of our early years, to our very bodies in our passing to eternal life. We grow, and we leave behind some things, and get better things. Don’t be sad that some things pass by, some by physical death, some by our growing out of them. These are good things and part of our life – the winter months must come to bring a new spring. They’re not really bad. Grow in love and learning and living a good life, and your earthly life will accomplish all the goals God had set when he created you, and your eternal life will not EVER end.

I think one thing that’s difficult for us is when we contemplate death, and judgment. We may be trying to life a good life, and perhaps even succeeding, but we read in Scripture of those whose focus changes at the end of their life – and perhaps seem to merit damnation based on how their life ended. They’re like the plant that was green for seasons and seasons, but never produced fruit. Somehow, their ultimate end doesn’t seem like justice. And perhaps we worry that we too, might fail in the end. And it definitely is something to worry about. What we’re talking about here, I think, is the example of the plants which struggled for years, but ultimately produced good fruit, vs the plants which seemed to grow beautifully for years, but in the end produced no fruit. How should those plants be valued or judged?

The key point, I believe, is why those plants were created in the first place. They were created to grow, yes, but also to bloom and make a difference for themselves and the future. They were created with a purpose. I’ve learned after many years of reading and studying and pondering, that my purpose can be summarized in words I learned in the 3rd grade: Why did God make me? He made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him -- and to be with him in everlasting life. That last point is gotten to through the first three points. The first three are my “growing”, growing all through my earthly life which will help me and help other children of God, and the last is my ultimate “blooming”. That end, that ultimate blooming, is the real purpose and goal of my life, or else it was just wasted.

Looking at life that way, you can see why some plants that only bloom after many years in fact DID accomplish their life’s purpose, even if for a long time it seemed they’d never achieve it. And you can see why some plants SEEM to be accomplishing their purposes, but they fail.

Ultimately, we don’t know the end success of a life, because we can’t see its end, so our judgments of “good” or “bad” people are just interim points of reference. They are not “good” or “bad” people, they are just people doing good or bad things – for now. And they can change. They can change. It’s something we should never forget. (And perhaps we may even have something to do with their changing.)

Where we are now is what we’ve grown to now believe and do. It’s the endpoint that matters, where we are now. If we were good, but have grown to count that as waste and so do evil, God will count our good as waste also. If we do evil and then see the evil of our ways and repent do good, God shall see how our heart has grown and forget the evil. Our life is not a tally of our good vs our evil. If that were true, it would be no good for long term evil to ever repent – for it would be balanced as more evil than good, nor would it be required that long term good continue.

We grow in holiness – or evil – during our life. And there is a point at which we are at the end: the sum growth. The end of the season of our life.

May you always continue to grow in holiness during your life, and may your ultimate harvest be great. It’s never too late to change your path, to add fertilizer to grow better, to turn toward the sun. As long as we are alive we can grow in holiness, to achieve the purpose for which we were created.

It’s never too late. And don’t forget to toss a little fertilizer at your neighbor sometime. I do – or so they tell me. (smile)