Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So you're stuck in a season.
[00:00:02] What does it look like to get yourself out of it and moving on to the next one? Let's talk about it.
[00:00:29] Welcome to shifts and ladders, everyone. It's Ryan. Listen, I. I don't know if you've had change in the seasons where you're at. They're whooping my legs right now, so I might sound like Batman. I may sound a little bit different than I usually do, but we're gonna keep rolling with it. My voice might get better as we're going through. So, yeah, let's rock with it. Last time we were talking about seasons, of how when we're in seasons, we end up finding ourselves holding on to them.
[00:01:01] Generally, when you hold on to a season too long, you're actually telling God and you're telling everyone around you that this is exactly where I want to be. But sometimes what we often forget is that seasons are only that. Seasons, they're meant to end and they're meant to begin. And we're gonna. I mean, I actually have a physical bible with me, but we were. If this was found in ecclesiastes chapter three, beginning in verse one, I'm gonna read it here for our time here, and then I'm gonna get right into. How can you understand where you are in timing and how to prepare for shifts like this? Because most of the time, what we fail to do is we failed to plan to actually, let me rephrase this. We plan. We fail to plan for shifts that are inevitable, and we just think that we're going to be perpetually employed, always going to be doing the same thing. We're always going to be this age. All the things that we just think aren't going to end actually do, okay? And we never plan for it and prepare for it as if it will. And then we get caught off guard all of a sudden. What we fail to plan for happens, and we are not prepared for that. So ecclesiastes chapter three says this to everything. There is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to gain and a time to lose. A time to keep in it and a time to sneeze. Excuse me. A time to keep in. A time to throw away.
[00:03:03] Good God. Mercy. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silent and to speak. A time to love and a time to time of war. So every time we live life, life is always going to have some ways of dislodging us.
[00:03:24] Yeah. We're always having good and the bad. The Bible says the. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Just because you are in this flesh suit and this body does not exempt you from the things that life brings. So you're also subject to the timing that God has placed in the earth. There's harvest season, there's sowing season. All of these things are important for us to understand because within the seasons, there are things such as timing that we have to prepare for. And we have to be able to acknowledge that timing in all of these seasons is what we need in order to disattach ourselves or detach ourselves. Excuse me, from the season that we are currently residing in. Okay? So it is our responsibility to accept and collaborate. God, in the season. Okay. You know, there is something, most of the time that we forget is that our resistance to the elements is actually ego at its best.
[00:04:35] Excuse me? Ego at its best. And I'm gonna tell you why.
[00:04:39] For you, for many of us, or for some of us, if you are going outside and you are wearing, some of our brothers and sisters do this, but they wear shorts, flip flops, and say you went out with no shirt, act like in summertime and it's clearly below 50, 40 degrees, you are telling other people, one, you don't believe that it's cold outside, which is your prerogative. But also what you're also saying is that I don't care what's going on outside, I'm no longer going to be prepared for or what I'm currently experiencing. And unfortunately, many of us are like those individuals who are wearing clothing out of season. This is the thing, too. My wife is great at this and I need to get better at this.
[00:05:32] She shops off season. What do I mean? We are currently in. This is fall. It's fall season where I'm at, and it's really fall.
[00:05:41] Not like it's kind of. It's a nice fall day. No, like it's cold right now.
[00:05:48] So what she does is she prepares for the summer and the spring in the fall, in the winter, because she knows inevitably we're going to get there. So she starts preparing to buy clothing for those seasons now. So when stuff goes on discount, I just gave you all cheat code. If anything goes on discount for the summer, she starts buying it up now because they're switching attire from the summer all the way now to the fall and actually probably into the winter at this point. But this is what she's been doing for years. My wife plans this out really well because she knows inevitably we're going to get back to what we just left. I'm gonna say that again. She knows inevitably that we're going to get back to season that we just left. It may look different now. You know, you might gain some lbs, you might lose some lbs. You might be, that's pounds, not linebackers.
[00:06:51] You, you, your hair might change. You might do a different style. You might get a new car. There's things that happen in between. But the most consistent thing that you can plan for is that eventually spring and summer are going to get here. So she does the due diligence now to buy the clothes out of season for when they become in season. She has the latest and greatest fashion. So, you know, ladies and fellas, I got spoiled with this with my wife, and I have not been wise enough to apply this particular principle. But what happens when seasons transition? Are you planning and preparing for what's coming up in the next few seasons? Eventually, in order for you to plan that, you have to detach yourself from the current season to prepare for the next one. How do you do that?
[00:07:46] Well, the number one thing is, I would say, let me say this. There's probably three things. There's actually three things. The first one is you have to detach the energy that you've placed in this current season. Find something in the future season to look forward to.
[00:08:03] Let me, let me get this. Give you this summertime on the pools, vacations, all that kind of stuff, right?
[00:08:12] When you don't have anything to look forward to, you are always going to back. Go back to what you just left because it created so many memories for you, you know? And because of that, it creates this level of angst because you don't know what the future is going to hold. So you don't have any. Anything to anchor yourself on. So all the things you anchor on are the past stuff. Never anything in the future. So the thing is, God gives us hope for future stuff. You can have hope in the moment, but the hope is for a future that has yet to be revealed to you. So if you only think the past is the best it's ever going to get, you will never start to prepare for anything in the future for yourself. Okay? So my daughter loves. You know, we had a great time this summer. We, my son and my daughter, we went different places. My wife had pool passes. We went to zoos and all that kind of stuff. We. We. We had a very, very active summer. But now my wife always says, hey, I'm looking forward to apple picking season when we can start baking apple pies. Hallelujah. Yes, apple pies. She makes these little pop tarts, like homemade, like, toaster strudel like things. I mean, with the homemade glaze. Yes.
[00:09:40] All that great stuff. Stuff.
[00:09:43] So she starts to look forward to the things of the season before they get to it. So even though she would rather be in warm weather, she has activities in the fall that she looks forward to doing so that it pulls her out of one season and keeps her in the next. And then, you know, right after that, we have Christmas and we. We have people coming in and, you know, we do the whole shebang. I mean, we do all kinds of stuff. Frying turkeys and all that good stuff. And if you ever haven't had. If you haven't had a fried turkey, you really should have one.
[00:10:21] But that's besides the point.
[00:10:24] God does everything in his appropriate timing, so it's important for us, and this is number two, it's important for us to align our timing with God's timing. How do you start getting glued into that or tuned into that? I believe through prayer that you'll get things revealed. There will be circumstances around you that will almost indicate what you've been praying for. I believe that there's a concept called confirmation, where what you've prayed for starts to create certain circumstances around you to start getting ready for it.
[00:10:58] I had a great friend. She's a great friend now. She's like a big sister to me. And she would call me at times and she would say, ryan, I'm sensing, and this is in prayer, she said, I'm sensing that there might be a shift coming in your life just out the blue sometimes. So you know what I would start doing?
[00:11:20] I would start packing up my desk. I would start moving my. My materials. I would start taking some things home piece by piece. Not like I was leaving that day, but I was starting to make my light, my load lighter, so that when it was time to transition, all I had was something I need to put in my backpack. Why am I saying this? In order to believe that shifts are coming, you have to have faith that it's going to come in the first place. And when it comes, you need to be prepared for it. But you can't be prepared ahead of time and you can't be prepared too late. So you always have to be in a state of preparation. And keeping your hands open in seasons keeps you agile and adaptable to be able to move wherever God is leading you. If we really believe that God is as good as he says that he is, if we really believe that, we must believe that every season has a purpose and every season is designed for our best interest, and ultimately not just for us, but for his interest, ultimately. Okay.
[00:12:34] Okay. And then this is the last part.
[00:12:36] We cannot control the timing of anything, but what we can do is recognize the timing of everything. Okay. It is so important. There was a tribe of Judah. There's twelve tribes of Israel based on the Bible. And one of them is Issachar.
[00:12:59] That son of Israel, aka Jacob, was noted for discerning the times so they could see. And God gave this particular tribe this spiritual gift of discerning times.
[00:13:16] So when they sense something was shifting, they would tell, tell the community that God was doing something different. So it's important for us to recognize that no matter what we're doing, we need to recognize and be okay with the fact that we can't control every season, but we need to be prayer to recognize any season, no matter what we're in. And I bet you and I would gather that there's a sense of freedom that goes along with recognizing you can't control everything. You know, those folks that are controlling, they, they get mad at you when you don't do something or it might be you. You might get stressed out, have anxiety because you don't know what's coming. You don't know what is the ahead of you. You don't know what is coming is good for you, bad for you, what it could do to you, what it can be for you.
[00:14:11] But the Bible says that in revelation that God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He knew you way before, just as Jeremiah said he knew you in your mother womb. Therefore he knew who you were and what you were going to do, do before you even came to this earth.
[00:14:33] So because we cannot discern timing for ourself, we have to trust someone who created time, and that's God himself. So I'm encouraging you, particularly in this season, as we're shifting seasons, whether the weather is agreeing with you, whether you're prepared for it or nothing, begin to let go and allow God to direct you in the seasons that you're going to be running into, because eventually all the things that Solomon listed are going to happen. Therefore, keep your hands open in every season that you're in. I promise you. I promise you. Once you allow yourself to trust God with the things that you can't control, actually everything, let's keep it 100 with everything. Your life will be much more appeasing to you. And you can live life free because you don't have to hold on to anything in your last season. Hey, do me a favor like this pod, tell somebody and subscribe to shifts and ladders. We got some great content coming up for you here in the next couple weeks, actually.
[00:15:43] So keep it locked here and we'll see you in the next pod. Peace.
