Years are measured in seasons. In much the same way, life is also lived in seasons. Although there is some continuity as we move from season to season, there can also be great differences and those differences can demand different perspectives, attitudes, and strategies to navigate well. We must navigate three feet of snow and eight-degree temperatures in February in very different ways than we navigate 95 degree heat in August.   One extreme requires a roaring fire while the other begs for air conditioning. One requires heavy clothing and lots of layers while the other demands light, breathable cottons. One season is lived primarily indoors while the other calls us outdoors. Just about the time we get one season figured out another presents itself. That change can be frustrating, but on the other hand, most of us are also eagerly awaiting the variety that a new season brings.

Sometimes, the God who created seasons for a planet spinning in space, may also call us to a new spiritual season as well. Sometimes the call comes at unexpected times for us while for God that time was appointed before the creation of the world. Moses is a prime example. The hand of God was clearly on Moses as a child who was marked for a great destiny. As you recall, to avoid extermination by Pharaoh, Moses had been placed in a waterproof basket and hidden in the bull rushes along the Nile by his Hebrew mother. The daughter of Pharaoh found him in the water and adopted his as her own. He was raised in the palace and given the training and advantages of Egyptian royalty. At some point he became aware of his Hebrew heritage and began to sense that somehow he was to be a major player in delivering his people from slavery. One day, he witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and in a moment of anger killed the Egyptian and hid his body. Within hours, Moses had been discovered and fled from Egypt to the backwater country of Midian where he married, settled down, and became a shepherd. He fled Egypt at the age of 40 giving up every advantage he had as a son in the royal house. Then for 40 years he lived the quiet, unassuming life of a shepherd.
At the age of 80, however, Moses had an unexpected encounter with God in a burning bush and a new season was thrust upon him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, God picked up the thread of the destiny he had assigned to Moses and called him to return to Egypt and finish the job. Moses was not excited. He had left Egypt confused and afraid with a quick demotion from the palace to the pasture. All he had experienced related to the call that God was resurrecting was failure. He no longer saw himself as a leader or a hero. He simply saw himself as a hapless shepherd destined to live and die living in dusty tents in Midian.

With each excuse Moses offered, God responded that he would go with him. Moses continued to push back. “Who am I to do such a thing? Who will I tell them sent me? What if they won’t believe me. I’m no public speaker. Lord, send someone else.” The text tells us that the Lord began to get angry. He had given Moses every assurance and had even demonstrated a coupe of miracles. More than anything, God kept assuring Moses that he would be with him and enable him every step of the way. God never sets his people up for failure.

So what was Moses’ problem? There are probably several themes that created pushback in Moses about this new season to which he was being called. First of all, he no longer saw himself as a leader or anyone special. He had tasted failure and disappointment forty years earlier and he had no desire to taste that again. Secondly, life was comfortable and predictable. It wasn’t great, but he had adjusted to it and found a sense of security and contentment in what he was doing. Now God was wanting to launch him into the unknown. If he were younger that might appeal to him but he was two-thirds of the way through life. Moses died at 120. He was already 80. For us, if we think we might live to be 90, then two thirds of our life would be 60 years old. Most of us aren’t willing to step into a totally new season at that age. But that is exactly what God was calling him to do.

Even though the call to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness might seem better suited for a younger man, God seems to be more concerned about character than age. He can impart strength but he waits on us to develop character. The Moses who saw himself as a great leader was arrogant and rash. A man who was humble and had shepherded sheep for 40 years could now shepherd people and would lean on God rather than his own abilities. For Moses, the fullness of time for this new season came after Moses himself had been seasoned.

So what if your season is about to change? What if God is not calling you to the next thing (a continuation of what you have already been doing) but a new thing that is totally different from what you have known before? What if he is wanting to pick up the thread of your destiny that you laid aside years ago. Would you be willing to step into that season that would be full of spiritual productivity and adventure? Or would you, like Moses, find every reason to stay where you are and die peacefully but without having experienced the fullness of God and his glory that Moses discovered after he finally said yes.

We are in a season of acceleration. Maybe it’s an “end-times” thing but global and social changes are happening at an incredible pace. I believe God will be asking many of his people to step into new seasons with him that may be an expansion of what they are already doing or something very different from what they have ever known before.

The world is shifting and God has a hand in it. Every shift will open up new opportunities for his kingdom to expand on earth and he will be looking for people to use in significant and, perhaps, unprecedented ways in those moments. If the call comes will you be available? I ask myself that question as well. Perhaps, if we actually anticipate the possibility we will be much more ready to say yes. Pray about it. Dream about it. Even ask for it…if you dare.

In our final look at Gideon, we will gain some insight into how and why God works in certain ways. Remember, Israel had drifted into years of rebellion and idolatry. The oppression they experienced at the hands of Midian was a corrective measure sent by the Lord to call them back into relationship with him.

In Judges 7, we find that Gideon had mustered 32,000 men for the battle against Midian, who still greatly outnumbered them. God then began a sifting process to reduce Gideon’s ranks. He first had Gideon announce that anyone who was afraid should leave. Twenty-two thousand promptly left. God then had Gideon take his men to a spring to drink. Three hundred squatted down, filled their hands with water, and lifted the water to their mouths. The remainder simply got on their knees, put their faces to the water, and lapped it up like dogs. God had Gideon dismiss all those who had lapped up the water so that only the three hundred remained.

God clearly states why he reduced the numbers. “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands, in order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her” (Jud. 7:2). We leave God when we feel we have no need of him. Self-sufficiency is the seedbed of rebellion against God. It’s not that men don’t want to worship, because after leaving God Israel would always chase idols. It’s just that men want to worship a god that will feed their fleshly desires and not call them to holiness. They want a god that will give them wealth, power, fame, sex…you know, rock-star stuff. Or they want gods that they can control through witchcraft and sorcery. Again…they seek the things that will make them self-sufficient. Satan still whispers, “You will be like God.”

God’s strategy was to put Israel in a situation where victory and survival could only come through the Lord. When three hundred face tens of thousands, there is no room for self-sufficiency. He also wants to reveal those who have faith. The three hundred who remained with Gideon were brave, but not suicidal. To stay, they must have had faith in the God of Israel.

God works in our lives to remove our idols, erase our self-sufficiency, and reveal any faith that is left in us after we have drifted away. Our drift from God is not always so apparent. We may still be going through the motions of faith but our hearts may be feeling very self-sufficient and may be looking away from God to other things that we believe will give us what we need to be happy. We may not even be aware of our condition.

God directed the three hundred to carry trumpets and torches hidden under clay jars to the enemy camp around midnight. After surrounding the camp, they blew the trumpets, broke the jars, and revealed the torches while shouting, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” The Midianites panicked and in the confusion of darkness attacked and killed one another. The survivors fled into the night. No general on earth would have laid out that strategy as a battle plan, but God works in unusual ways in impossible situations so that he gets the glory.

God is not an egotistical tyrant who demands worship because it makes him feel powerful. God knows who he is. He seeks glory because it is in our best interest to see his glory. His glory draws us to him. Facing an impossible situation and then seeing his hand in the situation in unexpected ways diminishes our self-sufficient attitudes and rekindles our faith. God is love and, therefore, always acts in our best interest. God rarely puts us in bad places. We typically get there by our own choices or the choices of someone to whom we are attached. But God will use those bad places to call us back so that we might make life-giving course corrections for our lives.

We always want deliverance to come by the express lane. But Midian had been severely oppressing Israel for seven years. Sometimes we need to taste the fruit of our self-sufficiency long enough that it becomes so bitter that we won’t ever return to it. Sometimes, God is multi-tasking and working on others while he works on our hearts. It takes time to get all the pieces just where you want them on the chessboard. But the good news is that God is always calling us back, adjusting our focus, and redirecting our steps…even when we have not noticed how far our hearts have drifted from him.

When we find ourselves in impossible situations, we need to check the spiritual condition of our hearts first. Have we been turning our hearts away from God or has our faith been cooling? Sometimes, our spiritual condition is not in a bad place, but God is simply calling us to a higher place. In those moments, we must begin to look for the hand and purposes of God. He is very intentional. No experience is wasted if we cooperate. God is rarely angry but is simply disciplining us as a good Father or stretching us as a great coach. Either way, don’t resist but look for his glory and let his glory draw you to him.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 2But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Rom.8:18-25)

As we continue searching through Romans 8, we discover that Paul seems to leap from a discussion of our adoption and inheritance to a reflection on our suffering in this world. If we are to live effectively in this environment we must remember that being children of God and co-heirs with Christ does not make us exempt from hardship, persecution, and even death in this world. Jesus clearly declared, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn.16:33). He also tells us that if the world hated him it will hate us and if the Rabbi suffers, the disciple will suffer as well. Jesus does not keep trouble from our door but enables us to overcome the trouble when it appears. Our standing in heaven supplies what we need for the victory rather than paving the way around every assault of the enemy.

A prosperity gospel tends to promise that we can live above the fray and stay one step ahead of trouble but that is not the witness of Jesus or the apostles. We live in enemy territory and as we push back the lines of the enemy we will be in many battles – for ourselves and for others. Paul knew that better than anyone and had suffered in incredible ways for the gospel. In this section of Romans 8, Paul gives us one secret to enduring the battles of life and continuing to push back against the dominion of darkness. That secret is to get our glorious future fixed in our minds so that the struggles on this earth pale in contrast to what our sustained faith will bring us in eternity.

Paul simply says that our present sufferings are well worth the struggle when we keep the end in mind. There is a glory that is to be revealed in every believer who holds onto his or her faith in Jesus until the end. In one sense everything is about Jesus but in another sense, Jesus has made everything about us.   Paul alludes to the Garden and the moment Gold cursed the earth because of Adams sin. The original earth was built to be eternal and perpetually self-renewing. As Adam and Eve were intended to have eternal life in the Garden, the Garden was intended to be eternal as their perfect residence. But as man became subject to death and decay because of sin, the physical universe fell under the same curse.

Paul tells us that God’s creation waits for the day that God’s children will be revealed and that is the day of resurrection when those he has adopted will be given glorified bodies fit for eternity. Apparently, as we are released from death and decay, the universe will be released as well. But it happens only after God has raised his children. Paul suggests that God is waiting on all of his children to come home before pulling back the curtain on glories we can’t even imagine. We have already been adopted but will not experience the fullness of that adoption until we experience the redemption of our bodies. Paul seems to point at three great events in history – creation, the cross, and the resurrection when God restores both man and his creation to his original intent. Satan beats God out of nothing.

We have already experienced the firstfruits of the Spirit. When we were “born again” our spirits were raised to life and reconnected to our Heavenly Father. At that moment the Spirit began his work of transformation in our body, soul, and spirit making us fit for the kingdom of heaven. I believe that the Spirit touches our bodies even now with strength, health and energy but the capstone on his work will be the resurrection when these bodies will be totally replaced or transformed into glorified bodies suited for eternity and the presence of God – no more sorrow, no more sickness, no more death, no more disabilities, no more weariness, no more separation from those we love.

We are children of the King, resourced by heaven, but in a battle and the battles must be fought. To give up is to lose out. Paul had many chances to turn back but he kept his eyes on Jesus and his mind fixed on the promises of glory and resurrection. His thought was that any suffering in this life was a small inconvenience compared to the amazing things God has prepared for his children so when this life gets so heavy you can hardly carry the load, when the battle gets fierce, when your heart gets weary – call on heaven while you think of the glories to come while the Spirit whispers, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor.2:9) Don’t give up.