Seasons . . . time for change

Change.

 

But I just got this figured out. I don't want to have to figure out something new.

  

The maps "app" on my iPhone and I had become good friends. I knew how she worked. Granted she didn't talk to me like "Susan," our beloved nickname for the voice of my husband's fancy GPS app, but we had a thing going. I realized something was lacking though. In a place this size with streets overlapping and winding around like a wadded up ball of yarn, I needed someone to talk me through the directions. I couldn't just look down every now and then. And besides, half the time it just didn't make sense because I didn't have the back ground information; I couldn't see what the map knows but didn't tell me. Like "Turn left and stay in the left lane." "Stay right for 1/4 mile." But "Susan" knows all that.

 

So my hubby downloaded her to my phone yesterday and today I was trying it out. I was going somewhere I had been several times before so I almost know the way. But she wanted to send me a different way, a faster way. I didn't trust her on the way over - besides I was already late. On the way home, I thought I might as well try it. Faster it was - she knew better which streets to go on. New scenery for me to enjoy. Change.

 

Liking the change?

 

Sometimes the change into the new is fun and exciting. But sometimes I crave the routine. And how I must remind myself that He holds the map and He is the navigator because He sees the big picture and He knows the ins and outs of the details of my life.

His prompting today is recurring - ENGAGE! Don't sit back or hold back because it's all new again. I have work for you here. Whatever that means. I know it is different than it was last season.

Heaven forbid - and I mean that, that I would stay stuck where I am. Refusing to grow, to learn, to take the next step on the journey.

Steps in the change.

"Here it is - the last sunset of the summer." Wow! As the words came out of some one's mouth and we sat enjoying what there was to see of the sunset that night, it hit me that I hadn't dealt with the change of seasons in two years. Oh, I missed it alright, but I had forgotten the reality of it. I lived in perpetual summer - one season repetitiously for two years. 

Another step in change was the realization hit yesterday as it was officially "cold" in the morning; it had been cool, but now it was 50 degrees outside - the coldest this body had felt was possibly in the upper 60s and with lots of humidity! It went from summer to fall in one day - enjoying the warm sunshine and then "Wow, I need a jacket."

What if I don't like this season?

The very thing I am so excited for thrills me and makes me nervous all at the same time. But what if I am so used to the hot weather that I don't really enjoy the cold anymore? And the message is that maybe I feel the same way about spiritual seasons. God is the author of seasons and I know there are seasons in our lives . . . sometimes they begin and end abruptly as this onset of fall here. And I think I'd rather have the smooth transition, but sometimes the abruptness is necessary.

We abruptly left a season behind in Guam. I'm still trying to figure out what this new one entails, but walking away from squadron responsibilities and duties where it's ALL yours one day and the next day, it is not, leaves you a little sad, a little lost, a little wondering "Who am I now?"

Yet His gentle reminder comes, "I will watch over your coming and going both now and forever more."

PSALM 121 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.