LIVING WITHIN THE SEASON

"How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?"

- Mark 2:19

A wedding is a time for celebration, not grievng. It is a time for great rejoicing, not disciplined self-examination. Life is filled with times and seasons. They arrive, stay for a while, and end. Each season has its perspective and its purpose. We do best when we embrace those seasons and live within them gladly instead of longing for the next to arrive. Each season has its particular outcome or fruitfulness depending upon that purpose. When we refuse to live within the character of a season. We miss much of what it has to offer.

Fourteen months ago I found myself in the midst of a vacation, a period of time longer than is generally available to me (or than I permit myself to take). I found that I had to "work" to stay within the vacation mode because of the workaholic that resides deep within me. The only thing I brought from work were some professional books I had long wanted to read and my day planner. I only opened the latter to record a note or thought, so that I could release it--and I resisted using it for any long-range purposes. By the discipline of staying "within the season" I felt free to sit on the beach with my wife drinking in the sun; experiencing the adventure of exploring new surroundings, and even testing my meager photographic skills. I simply enjoyed the detachment and abandonment of being on vacation. When I returned to a season of work--it was without weariness or dread.

What season do you find yourself in? Embrace it and see what God will do in your life throught it.

This devotional is published on behalf of the Church or God of Landisville and its friends.

(C) 2009 by Stephen L. Dunn. All rights reserved. To subscribe by regular email feed, send a email to http://www.coglandisville.org/ with the word SUBSCRIBE. You can also register as a FOLLOWER on this blog.

This particular devotional is also being posted on a second blog LIFE MATTERS which can be accessed at http://www.yourlifematterstogod.blogspot.com/.