Are you ready for some good news?
Whatever season of life you are in now won’t last forever. Seasons, by very definition, do not last forever.
Our new study of the Psalms begins with the first psalm:
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (Psalm 1:3, ESV emphasis mine)
One season never defines the fullness of reality.
Imagine you were an alien from some flat surfaced planet that never revolved around a sun but only had constant, unchanging atmospheric conditions. Imagine you visit earth, perhaps my home state of North Carolina. You’re supposed to report back to your planet your findings about the nature of earth.
Suppose you arrive via your alien ship in February. You see several occasions of snow, sub-freezing temperatures and no new vegetation or crops growing. What do you report back to your alien leaders? Earth is a cold and barren place void of new life. Uninhabitable.
Or, suppose you arrived mid-summer. July, perhaps. The humidity is nearly 90% and temperatures rise into the nineties each day. Plenty of food growing in the fields. What would you report back home? The land of earth is productive but the atmosphere makes the skin grow wet and the whole body over heated and exhausted. Not ideal.
You get the idea. If you experienced the physical landscape of North Carolina during one season only, you’d have a completely inaccurate picture of earth.
So it is with your life. Your life cannot be defined by one season. Perhaps you are grieving. It is a season. Perhaps you are a young parent, you are exhausted and can’t find five minutes to yourself. It is a season. Perhaps you are a student and your nose is stuck in a book all the time. It is a season. Perhaps you are an employee and your work is hard. It is a season. Perhaps you are on a spring vacation, unfortunately, it is only a season.
Because life is about seasons, the book of Israel’s poetry is rich and diverse. There is a psalm for every season. There is a psalm of lament for your season of grief and there is a psalm of praise for your season of jubilance. As you explore the Psalms, immerse yourself into the diversity of Israel’s poetry and worship. God’s Word is always an expression of God’s voice to us, but the Psalms are also an expression of our voices to God. Find your heart and your voice in the psalter. There is a psalm for every season.
