Life rarely looks like we thought it would – am I right?
We as humans can often set unrealistic or underestimated expectations on ourselves, others and the world around us.
This often leads to disappointment and disillusionment, neither of which are conducive with moving forward with motivation.
Today I want to talk about making peace with God’s pace.
Different Fruits, Different Seasons
Psalm 1 talks about a person who commits to following the Lord’s instructions, meditating on them day and night. We are reassured that the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but that the way of the wicked leads them to ruin.
In verse 3 of Psalm 1, we read something that can either cause great frustration or develop deep peace within us:
‘He is like a tree planted besides flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season…’
Different fruit for different seasons.
I wonder, friends, how often do we frustrate ourselves by trying to produce fruit in one season that was meant for another? Trying to date when God wants us in a season of singleness and focusing on Him alone. (See 1 Corinthians 7:34).
Trying to buy a house when God needs you in a renting season so that you are free to go Church planting or travelling. Trying to get pregnant when God wants you to develop your marriage a little more before adding to your family.
These are big fruits in big seasons, I realise this, but the same principle can be applied to the smaller things too.
Rhythms Of Grace
We must learn to move in the ‘unforced rhythms of grace’ (see Matthew 11:29-30 MSG), not rushing ahead or lagging behind. Every fruit in its own season.
Living in this level of trust can be hard sometimes. We all experience desires for the next new thing or look back with fondness at previous seasons gone by. But I believe that we would experience such contentedness and peace if we simply accepted the season we are in, with all of its glorious fruit, whatever that means.
I do not proclaim this message as someone who has it all together or is in the best season of my life ever – I know what it is to desire a partner, a home, a child of my own and to be stretching for the next season. But I must trust that God is aware of these desires in my heart and has decided that it is better that I remain in the season that I am in right now, with its specific fruit.
I wonder, friends, how often do we frustrate ourselves by trying to produce fruit in one season that was meant for another?
The Apostle Paul Knew
‘Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.’
(Philippians 4:11-12 NLT)
The Apostle Paul knew something about being content in each season, living at God’s pace and not His own. In the scripture above he declared that he had learned the secret to being content in any and every situation. He concludes this passage of scripture by writing that he can do all things through Christ who gives him strength.
Perhaps what Paul knew is that we have everything we need to do whatever we need to do in each season. Reaching ahead or behind only causes a tension in us that we were never meant to live in. This distressed state of tension is what wears us out and brings us down.
Let us commit today to embracing the pace that God has set us to walk at, individually and as a people group. Let us settle in producing the fruit in each season that God has called us to, regularly checking in with our Father as to what fruit we should be producing in the ‘right now’.
He will surely assure us of our path and reassure us that we are living in the peaceful pace of God.
