Things Which Shall Be Fulfilled In Their Season

One of the most power things said in the Bible was said to Zacharias by Gabriel. It is something that is most often overlooked but should be understood especially if we want peace in our life.

Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth were aged and without child, something they desperately wanted. Both were, “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6).

One day has Zacharias was performing his duties as priest the angel Gabriel appeared before him. Gabriel informed Zacharias that their prayers had been heard and that they would have a child named John.

Gabriel tells him that they will have joy and gladness, that John will be filled with the Holy Ghost while still in the womb and amongst other things, John would go forward in the spirit of Elias.

Zacharias doubted Gabriel to which the angel of the Lord replied, “And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season” (Luke 1:20).

It is the last part of Gabriel’s statement that we need to focus on. These things,“which shall be fulfilled in their season”. God works in our lives by seasons, not by set times and certainly not in days, hours and minutes.

A season is a not determined by time although they are time segments of our lives. The seasons of our lives are a process, an appointed time for something to occur and evolve into fruition. There are certain characteristics to each season with a purpose of growth for each person.

Times of each season are a time of change. Usually we do not see or understand the change as it occurs nor do we see any clear end to the season we are in. This puts us in a faith position. When things change or don’t change when they should for no clear reason then this is a season we need to be aware of God and have faith in Him. The process usually occurs when we see no change when change is desperately needed. This is the time to check our relationship with God. We need to make sure that we do have a relationship with Him and to lean on Him and not our own understanding.

Do we believe in God? Do we believe in his promises? Is time and circumstance squeezing us and creating doubts?

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9)

God is not slow, He does not tarry, nor does He loiter. God is an on time God with our best interests at heart at all times. The problem is that we don’t always realize that!

When change does not occur when we expect it or as we expect it then the natural tendency of man is to fall back to his carnal position of doubt. Doubt offers comfort in that that is what man is accustomed to, it comes naturally to man. Doubt believed in becomes doubt realized.

“Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:3-4).

Let patience have her perfect work.

“We certainly dread diseases, and want, and exile, and prison, and reproach, and death, because we regard them as evils; but when we understand that they are turned through God’s kindness unto helps and aids to our salvation, it is ingratitude to murmur, and not willingly to submit to be thus paternally dealt with…for were not God to try us, but leave us free from trouble, there would be no patience, which is no other thing than fortitude of mind in bearing evils…Moreover, the minds of men are not so formed by nature, that affliction of itself produces patience in them. But Paul and Peter regard not so much the nature of men as the providence of God through which it comes, that the faithful learn patience from troubles; for the ungodly are thereby more and more provoked to madness, as the example of Pharaoh proves” (John Calvin)

God forms and shapes us through the experiences we have in life. Positive and negative life experiences and how we react to them is the mold to which we are formed. God works with us purposefully through seasons, these extended sections of our lives to better us, strengthen and to keep us in the path of salvation. And with any season of the year, our seasons of winter and want will be followed up with the seasons of summer and growth.