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23.03.2018 Feature Article

Embracing the Seasons of Our Lives

Embracing the Seasons of Our Lives
23.03.2018 LISTEN

It is of Enoch that the Bible says that when he became the father of Methuselah he began to walk with God (Genesis 5.21). According to extra- biblical records the man Enoch could sin with the best of them until he became a father. Religious psychology would attribute his conversion to a midlife crises brought on by the knowledge that at sixty-five he had a son who needed proper nurturing therefore a refined code of life was needed. Comparative religion would claim that the sense of the divine element in child birth is the cause of his conversion. I think that for every man (generic man, not gender man) a time comes in your life - a time instigated by a certain event - when you'll have to reanalyze your life in view of eternity and that is what happened to Enoch at the birth of his son.

Forward the tape of time to into the New Testament and you'll notice that it took a certain event - the incarceration of John the Baptizer - to bring Jesus to that place where He began to preach the Kingdom (Mark 1.14-15). I do not for once believe any of the stories told about the Christ from age 13 - 33 and you'll prove to be a wise person to disbelieve them too. God has said that the first miracle performed by Jesus is turning water into wine therefore I'll side with God over the hyper-self absorbed Jesus of many Church people. (Need to make this clear for you to esteem the truth that Jesus actively came into the scene of human history after John had been arrested).

If you don't believe the Bible I can still reference you to many tales of modern day - life is full of people who changed their course of living only after certain events. These conversions make for dramatic telling but when we consider the life's now lived by these people we have to agree that something happened to them. On a deep level on my religious experience I don't believe in what Church people call "karios" and "chronos" time in much the same way as I don't believe in "rhema" and "logos" as they love to use it. But I do believe in what the Bible calls "linear" and "seasons" of time.

Time isn't cyclical nor is it a wheel turning upon itself. Time has a starting point and an ending point. Time is the telling of God's history and God's history is progressive not a reenactment. God has no reason to tell the same story more than once - His imagination isn't limited to our senses. God has no beginning and He has no ending. A man is born - therefore has a beginning and a man dies - therefore has an ending. Between the birth of a man and the death of a man therefore is an untold but "written" story. The birth of a man is written and told. The death of a man is written and told. But the live of man being prone to seasons is untold unless the man comes into the knowledge of the divine nature and tells his own story.

Man isn't a dice in a game of chance for God doesn't orchestrate His universe by luck, man is the hand that God uses to throw the dice of Providence. That means man is the tool of God's Sovereignty by which He makes His nature known to the powers of the universe, man is an instrument of grace. Grace is that element of time that draws a man into a good and awesome season of life. God who lives outside of time and seasons has to condescend to a low perception of time when dealing with man who lives within time. Someone may wonder why man has to live within time when he is said to be in the image and likeness of the Divine Being and to that we'll answer "man is too finite to live in limitlessness. A finite being will explode the moment it comes into contact with the sphere of the infinitude." I believe I should also tell you that God could have created man to by infinite like Himself but He didn't and that had to be because He chose not to for that wasn't His plan for man (metaphysics is outside the scope of this essay).

The seasons of life affects all men differently for the divine interacts with all men differently. Grace is the hand by which the divine touches the life of men and grace is that which transposes a man from one level to another. The Christian Bible has a lot to say about grace and it's interaction with the seasons of life and that begs the question of why many those who claim to believe it are living by chance and luck and worrying their heads over karios and chronos. In the physical sciences it is said that success comes about when preparation meets opportunity, so in the seasons of our lives success comes about when Grace meets a willing man at an opportune time.

Daily in our lives grace meets us for we are all, each one of us, alive by grace. We can read and understand by grace. Even the person who says there's is no such thing as grace could only say that by grace. Each man who is tired of his lot in life will say he is willing to receive grace and that is good. So the one other piece needed is the opportune time. The opportune time is that right season in your life when something happens for you to experience a paradigm in your soul. What must happen for you to experience this paradigm? I can tell you that for Enoch it was when he had a son, for Moses it was when he saw God at the burning bush, for Rehab it was when she hid the spies, for Esther it was when a queen was disobedient, for Mary it was when she met an angel, for the Baptizer it was when the heavens opened, for Jesus it was when John was arrested, for Paul it was when he was struck down, and for me it was when I lived past 30. Opportune time, grace and a willing man are all it takes for God to tell that one great story about you. This season happens many times in the life of a man but many times a man isn't willing to see. There is a season and a time for everything in life and there is a season and a time in your life when you'll be willing to receive a new conception of eternity. May God grant you that season where everything and every experience has sanctifying purpose to you. May the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ transfer you to the best seasons of your life.

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