seasons

Good morning!

Happy New Year! We are on the brink of 2025 and I did not yet have a devotional written for today but I am including my friend’s devotional since the words and timing are perfect!

I will be pausing writing devotions for a bit but please let me know if you have prayer requests to add to my journal.

Here is Pastor Jim’s devotional that I received today. If you’d like to receive his messages, let me know!

Blessings to you today and this New Year!

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Same tree different seasons 

Pondering the coming new year while Sitting outside today. It’s a beautiful warm winter day here in Texas and I’m observing the beauty of my friend the Bald Cedar tree that grows by my patio. No big scripture lesson today, just an appreciation of God’s nature. 

Winter has arrived and my once green and lush friend who provides shade and a home to the squirrels and birds has changed into her winter colors. Now orange and brown her cedar balls provide food for those squirrels and birds. The paper wasp have finished feeding on her pollen and are snug in their winter homes. The sun lowers in the sky and makes her colors glow bright red and warm. 

God is amazing in the delicate way He balances life and death, growth and rest, provision and consumption. The seasons of life are balanced just as delicately. We all go through periods of growth and loss, times of abundance, seasons of lack, and places of rest. Seasons come and go with regularity but what is constant is the time keeper; the scheduler of our seasons abides as my friend drops her needles to go into her bald season. Her sap will rest deep within her trunk until the sun begins to rise sooner and higher in the sky. Until then she will rest and wait for her creator to bring the next season. 

What season are you in right now? Peaceful rest or struggling growth? Dry and quiet or abundant and busy? Either way this season will pass, and the nest will come. Take the time to appreciate what the keeper of time has in this season for you. Time to store up or time to burn energy, time to learn, or time to teach. Our seasons are not constrained by the suns movements, but they are ordered by the Sons desires for our best life. 

We can trust our Creator to take us from season to season, lesson to lesson. We can struggle against them and waste our energy, or we can praise and thank Him for the beauty of this season and the lessons He has for us. 

As we prepare to move into 2025, let’s take a moment to realize that seasons past prepared us for the coming seasons and let’s thank our Creator Father for His wisdom and guidance as He takes through yet another door. 

Happy New Year my friends! And may God bless you and keep you in all things.