I’m currently reading a book on endings and how to embrace the fact that it’s normal for things to end. Such a concept, isn’t it? If something is good, we never want it to end. If it’s bad, we think it will never end! Good grief!
What we need is a new mindset about beginnings and endings. We need to recognise that all things come to an end and an ending isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means its season is done.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (NIV). There are times to begin things and times to end them.
Another way to look at endings is to view them as part of the pruning process. No one likes pruning, but the reality is that pruning is as normal for each of us as it is for plants. We need to be able to see that the endings of some things release us to start tending new things—new fruit and new harvests that could last for many years and seasons!
I find myself asking these questions lately:
Am I hanging on to an activity, relationship, or strategy when its season has already passed?
Is there anything I need to do or let go of to move into a new season? Have I been frustrated that the season I thought should be here by now has not yet come?
Have I fought the pruning process and kept tending what there is, even if it’s not producing any fruit?
Is it time to start harvesting fruit in some areas of my life?
We must be willing to recognise and acknowledge the season we’re in. We can’t expect to ‘harvest’ if winter has kicked in. In the same way, we can’t keep sowing and sowing—there needs to be a time of tending, and from there, a time of harvest.
As I read Ecclesiastes, I find myself asking God to reveal what season I am in. What activities under Heaven should I be participating in? Should I be gathering or scattering, sowing or reaping? Have I been trying to raise something up that should be killed off? Am I still mourning something when God says it’s time to dance? Are there things I’m keeping hold of that He wants me to throw away? Are there endings on the horizon that I am refusing to accept?
God is sovereign, and we should desire His sovereignty over our lives. So, as we ease into a new year, let’s seek to be in sync with God’s timing and walk with Him, step by step, through every activity under Heaven. Whether we are sowing or reaping, embracing or releasing, picking up or laying down, gathering or scattering—let’s remember that GOD has “made everything beautiful in its time!” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV), and that His beauty will manifest in whatever season we are in!