READ: ECCLESIASTES 3:1-14

Do you ever feel like you’ve been stuck in the age you are forever? Maybe you have big dreams for the future, but you just don’t have the resources or experience or age to do the things you want to do yet.

The teenage season of life has its own challenges and joys. And, just like in every season of life, there will be individual variations on how each person experiences these years between childhood and adulthood. But just like crops won’t grow if they’re planted in the wrong season, it will be difficult for us to grow if we try to live in the wrong season. Think about how the different seasons follow one another: at the end of winter the days will get warmer, then the bare trees will be covered in leaves, then the crops will be ripe and ready for harvest, and then the world will grow cold again as it takes a winter rest before the next spring.

Seasons—in life and in weather—won’t last forever, and that is a great comfort. But the greatest comfort of all is that Jesus is with us throughout all the seasons of our lives. This gives us the freedom to feel what we need to feel and grow how we need to grow…right in the season we’re in.

Are you finding space to enjoy and experience the time of life you’re in right now? Remember that Jesus walks with us through all the various seasons in our lifetime, and He uses each one to teach us new things and help us grow. Instead of trying to skip ahead, we can look around right now. We can find things to thank God for in all of life’s seasons, talk to God about how we’re feeling, and trust Him to be with us through every season. • A. W. Smith

• What is going on in your season of life right now?

• What things might God be inviting you to set aside for a future season?

• What beautiful things might God be inviting you to notice and enjoy in your current season?

• The seasons of our lives are leading to the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus’s return, when He will make all things new. How can the promises in the Bible help us weather the stormy parts of every season? (One passage that’s full of these promises is Romans 8.)

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)