God of every season
“...all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”
- Psalm 139:16
Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. Repeat. Each one comes after the other, and we do not spare it any thought. We make plans for “next Spring” or “early Winter” confidently, taking for granted that each will come. One after the other. It has been that way since the beginning of time. What makes all of this a wonder is that it is not random. There is a beautiful, intentional, wise, all-powerful, loving, gracious God behind it. It is God our Creator who made the seasons with all their beauty and ordained them, and continues to sustain them along with all of creation.
Consider this, dear friend: this same God has ordained not only your very existence, but every season of your life. Ponder these words of the Psalmist: “all the days for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be”. What a glorious thought! Not a day of your existence is outside of God’s good and wise purposes. This is especially a comfort because life can be so difficult and perplexing; suffering that leaves us confounded; injustice that causes our souls to cry out; evil that seems to consume the whole and tarnishes our soul. We can rejoice in this truth, that “all the days ordained for me were written in Your book”. Every good and bad day; every happy and sad day; days filled with choices we regret, and days filled with peace. He knows how to make all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
What shall we do with this wonderful truth? We take it to heart and entrust our whole lives to our good Father, knowing that he cares for us. We rely on the grace given for each day, meaning that we look to him each day to sustain us and give us what we need for that day; gazing at his word, responding with prayers of all kinds, getting on with the life he has given us and all that it comes with, and noticing how that grace has been administered to us at the end of that day. We live aiming to please him, knowing that each day and each season of our lives has been ordained by our beautiful, intentional, wise, all-powerful, loving, gracious God.
