A Change of Season

Have you ever looked back over a season in your life and you thought God was leading you down a path and it quickly changed for the worse? Have you ever felt like God was finally answering your diligent prayers and was blessing you with the desires of your heart, only to leave you with empty hands and a broken heart?

I was experiencing a season in my life that I thought God was supplying the desires of my heart that I had been seeking Him with for quite some time. I finally felt like God was directing me and I could see glimpses of Him providing for my needs. I felt like my life was about to head in the direction I had always hoped, only to quickly find my circumstances drastically changing and the things I had placed my contentment in were suddenly taken away. It really hit me hard. I felt so alone and didn't know how to pick up the broken pieces to move on. My trust had been shattered and it felt like I would never fully mend from the deep scars I was left with.

Leading up to that point, I was in a desperate place seeking God for direction. I prayed with a pleading heart for clarity and an evident sign. I was at the end of my rope and I begged God to step in, I couldn't handle the uncertainty anymore. I came to God with a desperate heart, and within a few days God had given me a clear answer to my prayer. Although I was praying for direction, I was devastated by the unexpected clarity I had received. It broke my heart, and for a while I lost my perspective. I lost my hope and questioned the meaning of my life.

Maybe you're going through a similar situation. Maybe you don't understand God's purpose for the current season God has you in. Maybe you don't understand the reasoning of the season God has chosen to end. Maybe you question the purpose of God's direction, seeming to always lead into a dead end. Let me tell you that even though your life may feel like it's at a dead end, it's only just the beginning. Things have to end so something else can occur. God doesn't make mistakes. Nothing occurs in our life without it going through His hands first. I had to remind myself of these truths in those dark moments of doubt and questioning God's purpose. I had to get an eternal perspective. This may feel like the end, but we are placed on this earth for something far beyond the pain we endure here. How we react and what we choose to do during the darkest of nights strengthens our character and trust in God.

I have found that through this life things come into our lives that will steal our joy. It's not because we earn them or lose them, but because we allow those things to become more prominent than God. We think that once we find happiness in those things we will be able to serve God more effectively. Unfortunately I have found it doesn't work that way. I must first find contentment and satisfaction solely in God and then I can find joy in those blessings He so freely offers. Society constantly throws false ideas and assumptions at us daily, leaving us thinking we need a status or possessions to complete us or fulfill our needs. Satan is behind these evil thoughts and I can't count the times that I have fallen for his deceptive schemes. How often I have found that my circumstances don't need to change, but my perspective.

Take a step back and look at your situation. Satan is using the very things you desire the most to pull you away from God. He's using the rejections from your past to haunt you. He's using the negative words of criticism to pull you away from your full potential. Satan's trying to deceive you into thinking that God doesn't have a plan for you. He sees your faith in God and is targeting you because he doesn't want you to continue to grow deeper. He wants you to doubt that God is working. He wants you to question God's presence. He wants you to grow weary in doing good. Take a look at your situations from a new perspective. It's not the people or circumstances that are destroying you, it's Satan and his targeted treachery that is leading you down a path to discouragement and doubt in God. Don't let him win. Don't let the darkness overtake you.

Just like in baseball, those closest to reaching "home" are the ones often targeted, while the rest of the players aren't as much of a threat. This is the same with how Satan works. He targets those who are strengthening their faith in Christ. He doesn't want them making a "home run" and growing in their relationship with God. He targets the strong because the weak aren't seeking after God and chasing the temporary pleasures of the world.

If you're in a current season in your life that you feel is unfair or prolonged, don't lose hope. Seek God to help you through and ask Him to give you a clear perspective in your current circumstances. Don't forget that the desires and pleasures this world has to offer will one day burn away. Choose to focus your life and purpose around something that will be refined through the fire. Use those deepest scars on your heart to be opportunities for your faith in God to be strengthened. Desiring our circumstances to change is not the primary goal, it's seeking to fulfill God's plan, trusting that He doesn't make mistakes and allowing our perspective to be focused on our eternal home. Choose to be so focused on God, and what will last for eternity, that you can become delightfully surprised when He blesses you with the desires you have surrendered and so generously offered over to Him.


For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. // 2 Corinthians 4:16-18