How to Manage Seasons in our Life, Ep 2-2

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be talking about seasons.  Yes, seasons, we all experience them whether we acknowledge them or not, we all experience them whether we understand them or not, we all experience them whether we enjoy them or not, we all experience seasons whether we grow from them or not.  So let’s get to a place together where we can start to develop ourselves and grow through the season for whatever the Lord wants to provide to us.

If you think about it, a season is provision.  There are crops that can only grow in certain seasons, they have to experience the season or they will wither and die or worse yet, not even begin.  I have never seen a plant try to rush growing through their season, have you?  Yet, I have known countless believers, myself included that talk about trying to hurry up and get through a tough season.  I don’t know anyone who has tried to hurry through a season of rest or a season of favor, have you? Sure, there may be people who have newly retired and are unsettled in their newly found “season” of rest, but that’s a man season, not a God season. 

I recently gave a prophetic word to a woman I didn’t know.  It was a few minutes long as I recall and in it one of the elements of the word was that the Lord was preparing her.  That he was instilling in her new desires that she hadn’t even thought of yet and there would be doors opening for her as a result.  About 30 minutes later this woman came to me with someone who knew me to tell me that she has been hearing about doors opening for a few months now and that she didn’t know what it meant.  She was struggling to get the answer.  As I listened to her tell me her struggle, I asked a few questions and began to understand why she didn’t have an answer yet, but her heart wanted one so badly.  She was visibly upset, in a good way, but didn’t know how to understand.  Her family was wanting to leave and kept interrupting her while she was talking to tell her they wanted to leave.  

“Seasons” means different things to different people. One of the numerous definitions of “season” is an indefinite or unspecified period of time; a while.  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, tells us this:

A Time for Everything

3 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Ultimately the conclusion to this chapter is that God has a plan for everything.  All happens in His timing, not ours.  We go through the seasons and at the end of one season, begins another.  What is your season right now?  Do you know?  Have you asked the Lord? Asking the Lord is incredibly important because we want to make sure we are working WITH Him to work through the season, not around it, not over it, not turn around in an attempt to avoid it.  When we fail to work with the Lord, we lose out on the blessing that will ultimately come from getting to the other side.  The Lord would not put us through a season just to put us through a season.  He is always preparing us for His plan in our lives.  When we don’t work with Him, we open ourselves up to misunderstanding, resentment, bitterness, and consequences we don’t anticipate.  When we are in a difficult season, we may want to find our own answers and unfortunately, the enemy is always willing to present options or sway us into believing there is a shortcut or deceiving us into believing we are following God’s plan by twisting scripture or circumstances. 

About 4 or 5 years ago now, I was in a season of growth.  I firmly believe that we can never stop growing in the Lord.  At no time will we ever know enough about the Lord, He will always provide more when you seek Him.  Anyhow, I was in a period of growth, some of which has resulted in this podcast and other things I am working on, but this period of growth centered around the Book of Ezekiel.  I love Ezekiel, I named my macaw after him. If you have never read it or it has been a while, it is a fascinating story of an Old Testament prophet.  He was an incredibly obedient man who did whatever the Lord asked of him, with the exception of one thing and the Lord allowed him to complete what was asked of him in an alternate way, but Ezekiel was exceptional in how we heard, related, understood, and obeyed God.  My Ezekiel season lasted about 4 months.  It started with the first 30 days, every single day a scripture or a mention of Ezekiel came to me, whether it was the radio, a random comment from someone, the side of a truck, everyday it came to me.  So I started to read Ezekiel. I read it once, loved it, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to get from it.  I read it again.  Same thing.  This process lasted 4 months.  I asked the Lord, what am I not getting, what do I keep missing.  Every time I went through it, the Lord was working on my heart more and more to get me to think more like Ezekiel.  He wanted me to be willing to do whatever He asked whenever He asked it, no matter what anyone else thought. I had to work within myself to find the willingness to be bold where He asked me to be bold and quiet when He asked me to be quiet.  I’ve shared before that I am an introvert, so if I don’t know you, I don’t really prefer to walk up to you and start talking to you.  I am, however, an opinionated introvert, so if you are doing something I don’t like and it affects me, I have no issues letting you know.  In my younger years, I was referred to as aggressive, but I’m pretty sure they just meant assertive.  Anyhow, back to my story, once I finally understood what the Lord was asking of me and then worked WITH him to be what He was asking of me, the Ezekiel season ended. So flash forward to today, if the Lord has a word for someone, whether I know them or not, I have to go tell them because that is what the Lord needs me to do.  That action is part of His plan for my life and I want to live out the plan He has for me.  I would say of the words I give, its about 50/50 given to people I know versus people I don’t know.  All have been received, they made sense to them so I know the Lord is working to build these people and encourage them and I am just a tiny part of how he is speaking to them in their season. 

So let’s go back to the woman I spoke of earlier, we’ll call her Jane, who received the word about the doors.  One of the first things the Lord said was I am preparing you.  He then told her that he was instilling new desires in her she hadn’t even thought of yet and then He mentioned doors.  In her mind, she skipped past the first two things and moved straight to the doors of opportunity.  She was in the preparation phase.  She wanted to be in the receiving phase.  It doesn’t work like that.  Our God is a God of order.  We never saw Jesus do anything willy nilly out of order.  He didn’t multiply the fish and the loaves and then thank His Father.  He thanked His Father first for what He needed.  We can’t rush the Holy Spirit.  Truthfully, why would we even want to?  I do not want to have a door full of opportunity open up for me if I was not ready for that opportunity.  I might blow it if I don’t know what I am doing. 

Likewise, the Spirit Realm has an order, and if we don’t take our seasons seriously and develop WITH the Lord whatever He is trying to develop in us, we are opening ourselves to more than we can handle and we won’t recognize what is coming at us. 

So what do we need to do to get ourselves through a season?  Well, if you are following through on my ask of you from last week, you have a good start.  There are 4 phases with a combined total of 10 steps to help you manage your season.  This is more than I generally give but this is about going through our season and completing it correctly, not quickly. We won’t get through it any faster if our hearts aren’t correctly aligned.

4 Phases of a Season

Acknowledgment Phase

1.      Daily Bible reading and Daily prayer time with the Lord

2.      Get Rid of all expectations of your season

Preparation Phase

3.      Ask the Lord about your season

a.      What is it? Growth? Discipline? Revelation? Obedience?

b.      What is He asking of you during the season?

c.       Are you doing anything to inhibit your season?

4.      Be patient and wait on the Lord as He works with you in your season.

a.      Do not try to jump ahead

b.      Do not make decisions on your own 

c.       Be content in the waiting, it’s not a race

Application Phase

5.      Follow through on whatever the Lord asks of you

6.      After you have followed through, go back and earnestly ask the Lord how you did, how could you improve, is that what He wanted

7.      Accept correction with love

8.      Thank the Lord for all He is doing in your life

9.      Continue until the Lord releases you from the current season

Receiving Phase

10.  Move forward with the Lord to receive the fruit of your completed season

That seems easy enough, right?  Sometimes we are in a season and we misidentify, or are unable to discern that it is actually the Holy Spirit working on us and when we work against it, it just takes longer to receive what the Lord wants to provide us.  The Lord is a giver of gifts.  James 1:17, tells it to us this way, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We need to be able to identify shifting shadows and if we rely on the Lord during every season, we will know what it is the Lord is doing in our lives and why.  We won’t be susceptible to the traps of the enemy and we take away any legitimacy the accuser has against us when we make mistakes and fall short.

I hope this has been helpful to you.  We are building a new relationship, our biggest, best year yet in the Lord and I am glad you are joining me.  If you know someone you think might benefit from this podcast, please share.  It is life changing if they are willing.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

·         Opened show talking about seasons, we all experience seasons in our life

·         Seasons have a purpose and we cannot rush completing a season.  Season is provision

·         We want to begin and end a season working WITH the Lord, not against Him.

·         Told you about the young woman I gave a prophetic word to about preparation and doors

·         Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

·         If we don’t understand our season, we are susceptible to the enemy deceiving us

·         My Ezekiel Season

·         Revisited the young woman and why she wasn’t understanding what the Lord was telling her

·         4 Phases to manage a Season

·         Acknowledgment Phase

1.      Daily Bible reading and Daily prayer time with the Lord

2.      Get Rid of all expectations of your season

·         Preparation Phase

·         3.         Ask the Lord about your season

·         4.         Be patient and wait on the Lord as He works with you in your season.

·         Application Phase

·         5.         Follow through on whatever the Lord asks of you

·         6.         After you have followed through, go back and earnestly ask the Lord how you did, how could you improve, is that what He wanted

·         7          Accept correction with love

·         8.         Thank the Lord for all He is doing in your life

·         9.         Continue until the Lord releases you from the current season

·         Receiving Phase

·         10.       Move forward with the Lord to receive the fruit of your completed season

·         James 1:7

We encourage you:

·      To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment.

Also, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we are doing a series on the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!

Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community.  I am working on planning some live events and the only way to be included in that is to be a part of our Warrior Community.  Just visit our website, www.conqueringourunseenenemies.com, and join from the Home page or the Resources page. 

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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