The Changing of the Season

The summer this year was long.  I don't remember the last time I felt cold in Los Angeles.  It has been hot for close to 5 months now.  It is hard enough to recognize seasons in Los Angeles.  But it was something about 2012 that made shifting seasons impossible to identify. 

The changing of your season is one of the most critical things to track with.  If you do not know what season you are in, you will be doing everything inappropriately.  Imagine walking outside in the middle of a brutal winter in shorts and a t-shirt.  Imagine wearing a black peacoat in the middle of a 105 degree summer day in Palm Springs.  Nature tells us that different seasons require different adjustments - different placements - different landscapes.  Our destiny is no different.  Our purpose requires no less.

I believe knowing when your season is changing is the most effective way to battle anxiety and fear.  Many of us are fighting battles that were left in the seasons behind us.  We are remembering or focusing on people, events, and places that were from 3 seasons ago.  We turn to habits that we overcame 2 seasons ago.  We are addicted to how we felt 1 season ago.  This is why we don't know when we are in a new season.  It is pure insanity to act like you are sick when you were cured.  It is completely useless to be at war in a time of peace.  The art of your war has to be fought with adaptability.  The success of your battle will depend on how malleable you are to shifting circumstances and movements in time.

People who cannot sense the change in their season can never find hope in others or themselves.  They are always holding onto a picture they created based on their limited world-view, or their inability to engage with painful things.  Their lives are based on pictures, whereas real life is a multi-dimensional movie in high definition.  You cannot rely on your pictures.  Your picture can never capture what is fully going on.  Your picture is static and undeveloped.  It was a moment in time, and dwelling on a single moment prevents living your real life movie. 

When you don't know your season, you are unable to do unconventional things that seem to have nothing to do with your calling.  If you are meant to play in the NBA, you don't shoot baskets all day to get better.  You have to understand the complexity of the game, which demands you to perform seemingly unrelated tasks to basketball.  Basketball is a game of angles, which means you have to develop your court vision, agility, and every single muscle that complements the major ones.  Kobe Bryant has knee problems -   but he understands how is entire body works in order to facilitate a stronger knee.  Only a fool would just focus on getting a stronger knee without tackling the other dimensions it takes to be excellent.

If you cannot sense a change in your season, you will be single when you are meant to be married.  You will be married when you are meant to be single.  You will be saving when you are meant to be spending.  You will be stuck when you are meant to be mobile - and so on and so forth.  Being fully present in a season does not require living with respect to the season that just passed by.  You can put away your winter coats when it is time for summer.  You do not need to keep one handy just in case.  Many of us like to keep things handy just in case the season really did not change.  When you do this, you start relying on old methods - on old ways of communicating with people and your Creator - on outdated love.  Nothing you have saved up from a past season can be lost.  You have to trust yourself, and trust how you have grown.  You do not have to fear missing out - or losing what you once had.  These things are already in you, and the new season will make you stronger in those areas.  Don't worry about keeping it handy.  The new season will give you a better version - a better coat - so that the following winter will be even warmer for you.

The world needs people who are more than their talent - who are more than their ministry - who are larger than their perceived lands.  If you want to be mighty in your land, you have to become detached from what the world tells you is strength.  You have to not fear what they fear.  You have to not call conspiracy what they call conspiracy. There is a strong Hand of the Lord that warns you to only regard Him as Holy - and nothing else.  The strength of His Hand will guide you to and from seasons.  Stay alert.  Stay flexibly assured.  Stay full of love.  In the spirit of staying in this season, I will be eating pumpkin pie until the end of the year :-) - oh yeah, stay light - hearted.  Peace, and much love to you - Jeevo.