Seasons – the mountain top

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know I’ve spoken before about experiencing seasons in our life and how this is something we all experience just as nature goes through the cycle of its seasons. Seasons are temporary, and each season of life affords us the opportunity to learn lessons about ourselves. I have spoken previously about the season of wind and rain (difficulty and hardship), but I think it’s important to focus on the season of being on the mountain top. In life we have periods of time in which we experience each of these seasons, often multiple times. Sometimes the seasons are obvious and other times less so, but the seasons are there, allowing us to prepare for the next to come. So often in life we do not always stop and take the time to realise we are in a season of abundance and joy, standing at the top of a mountain that gifts us the opportunity for awe, wonder and thanksgiving. There are also times in which we do realise that we are in a fruit bearing season but are then so focused on the eventual end of that season that we forget to soak in the glory that the mountain top reveals to us.

The thing about the seasons is that each season does not last forever and will end, leading to the next season. We will all go through seasons of happiness and seasons of suffering at some point in our lives. Just as the earth needs the rain and the sun to produce flowers so too do we need seasons of both difficulty and prosperity in order to mature and grow. The contrasts are important as the times of joy allow us to hold onto hope through times of despair while the hardships we face in life make the top of the mountain seem more meaningful and significant. Unfortunately, because we are aware that our seasons of prosperity and joy will come to an end at some point we are often looking out for the end in the season. We often think things like, everything is going great, so when are things going to start going wrong? This is too good to be true? Surely this season is bound to end any time now? The good never lasts? What this does is it stops us from being present in the moment and enjoying the fruit bearing season we are in. It also often means that we end our season of joy and happiness prematurely because we are looking for reasons for it to come to an end and we are looking for that change in our fortune and circumstance.

Often at times we are fearful of experiencing and enjoying our season of joy because we are so scared it will be taken away from us suddenly and without warning and that we will be blindsided by pain, trauma or loss. Often, in the midst of our mountain top experience we dress rehearse tragedy so that we can ‘prepare’ ourselves for the eventual end and possible difficulties or trials we may face in the future. We often have the experience of foreboding joy because it can be scary to feel joy and enjoy the season we find ourselves in, as to do this requires vulnerability. We need to learn to lean fully into joy and our season of prosperity and we need to stop dress rehearsing tragedy and thinking about everything that could go wrong. We are often so scared that the reasons for enjoying our season and prosperity will be taken from us, but this just serves to distract us from enjoying those very things that bring joy and life. It is so important for us to learn to be present and practice gratitude. Use those mountain top experiences as a reminder to be grateful and learn to practice gratitude in all seasons.

Let us all learn to commit to the moment and choose joy. Sometimes all we have to do is to do the joyful thing, that activity that has no purpose or outcome other than just that moment of happiness and joy that comes from it. Enjoy the mountain top and all that it has to offer. Choose life.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”