Can I Get It Early?
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Amplified Bible (AMP)
1TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven: 2A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, 3A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, 4A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,6A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away,7A time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak,8A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
In our home, my young people know that between October after my daughter’s birthday, if it is not an emergency or someone’s birthday, it waits until Christmas. I have had a cut off time for extras since my children were small, and they know the rules. I don’t care about game releases, sale items or anything, if you want it and it comes out between mid-October and Christmas it is going under the tree for Christmas. But this year one of my children, or as I said young adults, wanted to change the rules of engagement, by getting me to buy it for Christmas, but give it to them early. They kept trying to justify the need to obtain this item now. I have not bent, because this morning as I sat here, I heard this scripture, to everything there is a season. But the problem is we want what we want even if it is not our season.
As I reread this scripture for what seemed to be the thousandth time. I realized again that God has an order and a season, a standard and it requires us to go through a process and to stay in class, and complete the course, to include the tests, quizzes and the final examine. Most of the time we lack the realization or maybe just the acceptance that God has us in a season for a reason, and we despise having to go through that season because we want it now. We feel as if we have waited long enough, or we have endured enough and we are entitled to get what we have coming to us. But I am learning God wants us to complete what we have started just as He completes what He starts in and for us. He wants us to learn all that we need to equip us to handle the next season we are entering. As I go through my studies in counseling I have begun to see a pattern, which is that each coursework and exercise builds upon the last. It is the same thing within in our season, or our process. What we are going through, what we are enduring, and what we are being processed through is building upon the last thing and assisting us and building us up. Going through the process and the seasons that we are in is also about proving our faithfulness. Will we endure and still stand even when it doesn’t look right, or even when it gets tough, will our loyalties waiver, or will we grow faint? Lastly, I believe that the reason God wants us to wait through our appointed times and seasons is to build in us a sense of appreciation and understanding. If we understand that it was God that saw us through, strengthened us and in some cases carried us to the point of our break through, our deliverance and our place of purpose we will appreciate where we are all the more and how we got there, but we should also have cultivated a deeper sense of appreciation for who God is in our lives.
We all have something that we want now, but the question we need to honestly ask ourselves is, is this our season to get it? Have we endured the process necessary to obtain what God has for us, or our hearts desire, without losing appreciation or focus? Did we learn everything that we needed to equip us to receive and to move into the blessings of God? I often am blessed to speak into the lives of others and one thing that I remind them and I have often had to remind myself is not to despise the process. Not to despise the waiting. I look over my shoulder on occasion and I look at some of the things I went through in my life, and I see the handwriting on the wall, if I had been able to allow God to finish the work in me, or if I just had stayed focused and learned the lessons of patience and faithfulness, many bumps in the roads would have been avoided, and many setbacks would not have been because I would have been setup for greatness and moving in the season that God wanted me to be in. But I thank God for grace and mercy, that kept me and I got my lessons in and many others. Learn to appreciate the process, the season and getting the right things at the right time. Remember the scriptures in Psalms 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
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