On Sunday, we continued our series “Catching Foxes” with our Kfirst community. Our focus has been on what the Word of God says about our emotions. This past Sunday, we looked at the seasons that our emotions can go through.  And we’re taking days this week to specifically focus on each one of the seasons. (Click here for Sunday’s notes.)

Check out previous “season” posts:

• Fall: The Season of Transition
• Winter: The Season of Loss

SPRING: THE SEASON OF NEW BEGINNINGS

Spring is exhilarating. After a long winter, there’s nothing like the joy of spring. And it’s the same with the seasons of the soul.

Where “Winter” is a season of loss; Spring is a time of new beginnings. It’s the sensation of getting a second chance, the start of something new.  It may be:

• A new relationship
• A new position
• A new development in your marriage
• A new opportunity.

And these “new” moments cause tremendous movements to our emotions. It’s for this reason, the two primary emotions of “Spring” is excitement and shock.

Spring is that place where you say things like “I think this is the right move” then, all of a sudden, “What was I thinking?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to “Spring.” And for this fickle and wonderful season, I’ve discovered two challenges:

1. Embracing the “new.”
   • The sense of “unfamiliar” has detoured so many people of the new things God is beginning. It’s so easy to look back (and even want to go back) to a previous place or season because it’s “what I know.” The children of Egypt, in a season of spring, faced a Promised Land. But, that “unfamiliar” feeling made them look at a land of plenty but long for a place of suffering. It was what they knew best but it wasn’t God’s best. It was miserable, but it was comfortable/known.
2. Develop forward progress.
   • Most of us in the newness of the season of spring, face moments of “Two steps forward, three steps back.” April in Michigan is that way. We’ll have a week of 60-70 degrees. The sun will shine, yard work gets done, bikes come out, and people are happy. Then all of a sudden, the temperature plummets and snowflakes begin to fall. There’s that mass social media panic to wonder if the new season will ever unfold. Whatever you see God developing, be adamant about pushing forward. You’ll face challenge and you might even experience some temporary failure heading into “new territory.” But fight the urge to give up on what God has brought you to.

My challenge for “Spring”: Boldly step into the new.

God is in the business of renewing you and me.  1 Corinthians 5:17 says,

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

He is the God of new beginnings. And I find that each place God brings me to is not my last “new beginning.” He has plans (plural) and purposes (Jeremiah 29:11). His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23). Are there some new beginnings in your lives these days? If so, don’t allow Satan to quench your enthusiasm. He wants to send you back to winter. He desires you to live in the season of sadness. ; The Devil wants you to be stuck in a place unwilling or unable to move forward.   Let the Holy Spirit drown out the deceiving voices and empower you to hold onto hope. And hope, no matter how small the dose, can lead you to extraordinary new beginnings.

If you are in the season of new beginnings (Spring), be encouraged knowing this: God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6).

If you are in this season, remember our final lessons from Sunday.

1. You were meant to process your season, not be possessed by it. 
2. Don’t get so consumed with the next season you missed the work of your present season.
3. Unnecessary pain results from remaining in a season long after it changed.
4. Your season is not your story; it is a chapter in His beautiful story for your life.

Love you all. Tomorrow we wrap up by looking at “Summer,” the season of abundance.