Minding our Tenses Well: Day 1

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (God’s promise to Noah after the flood.)

                             Genesis 8:22                             

Where I live, it is an almost season. The days are almost summery, the flowers in the garden are almost blooming, it is almost time for neighborly visits on the porch and almost time to take a walk without grabbing a jacket on the way out.

Life is full of almost seasons, isn’t it? All the signs are there, past history has assured us that it will happen, but the object of our desire—though teasing that it is just around the corner-- hasn’t been fully realized.

We are all familiar with the certainty of the changing seasons. Some years may be wetter or dryer or colder or hotter, but that the next season will come? You have the Word of God on it. The same, and more so, with day and night. Even the longest night will ultimately fade into sunrise. And we know that almost seasons aren’t confined to meteorological events. Christmas will come before you know it, once a year it will be your birthday (how you feel about that depends on whether you are nine or over-50). Students will graduate, babies will be born and engaged couples will become newlyweds.

Almost without exception, the great heroes of Scripture had their almost season—some were short, some lasted decades—before their destiny was fully realized. David went from palace favorite to fugitive from the king, hiding out in the wilderness, Moses was seasoned for forty years on the backside of the Midian dessert, Noah worked from sunrise to sunset for a hundred twenty years to construct a large boat for the coming flood. (Before there were floods.)

In hindsight, it is easy to see the purpose for those times of waiting, especially for other folks. But when it is you who are in the middle of an almost season, the things most needed--clarity, patience and faith--are what seem to be in the shortest supply.

Our present challenges may look much different than those faced by Noah and Moses, but God has not changed. And these words written by David during his years in hiding from Saul can also be our refuge and our reality.

I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be put to shame. Psalm 34:4, 5

Nancy Shirah