Welcome to the winter season! Assuming everyone lives somewhere as frigid and cold as I do (Ohioan, here!), you may have noticed the sun doesn’t beam through your windows in the wee hours of the morning as in the summer months. My daily commute normally begins around 8 a.m. and the sun is just beginning to reveal itself; this can make our day seemingly gloomy, especially if you’re accustomed to the early rise and shine we receive in the warmer seasons. The keyword though is that it seems gloomy; the sun is still doing its thing, rising and shining over all the earth.
I’m in a season that has caused me to shed a good amount of tears, I can’t recall a week that has passed without me shedding at least one tear. This is not to garner pity or place blame because I can admit that 2020 has unfolded in direct correlation to my own decisions; I reaped what I had sown. But today, I was comforted and enlightened by the underlying truth: it’s not a time for mourning, but it is morning time.
Ecclesiastes 3 teaches us that although there is a time for everything, everything is not at the same time. We have a time to grow and shrink; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing (re: Covid-19); a time to kill and a time to heal.
Verse 2 specifies, “a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted”. God wants to pluck the roots in us that are actually weeds which stifle the life He has implanted in our hearts.
Jesus mentions in John 15:1-8, that the Lord is our vinedresser and He cuts away from us all. For those who are bearing fruit, the Lord prunes so they bear more fruit; and the branches who bear no fruit, He also cuts away also but, this time, to discard. (John 15:2).
Once we kill what is not like God yet resides in us, then it is time to allow for divine restoration.
“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, And shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice.”
Jeremiah 31:3-4
As we can see from the scripture, The Lord is so gracious and patient with us. He’s telling Israel (which is us!) that His love for her knows no time constraints, it is forevermore, and because of that infinite love He has brought us to Himself. The Lord isn’t denying that Israel is depleted, dare I say destroyed, at this moment; thus He says “Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt”. His daughter has to be constructed again, molded again, strengthened again. Luckily for us, we have seemed to lose nothing. As the text also says we will be covered again and able to rejoice and praise the Lord.
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
1 Peter 5:10
What are we to receive from this? That joy comes in the morning. Even when we don’t understand, we have to keep our eyes on God because He hasn’t taken His eyes off of us.
No matter what your circumstances presently are or what 2020 has tried to tell us: it’s not time for mourning, it’s morning. The light will shine through, brightly and boldly.