Don’t Waste Your Season

Apparently, I’m really not a winter person. Every winter, without fail, I start questioning everything about my life— including my purpose, my location, and my abilities. We’ve lived in the mountains of Colorado for several years. There’s something about the short, bitterly cold days of winter that shrinks my vision.

Winter is when I’m convinced that spring is never going to arrive and the unrelenting freeze will last forever. Winter is when I imagine that everything, including all forms of growth, is on hold and frozen in time.

Does it have to be this long? Do we really need this much snow? Is winter even necessary? It feels like such a waste of time!

You may be asking the same types of questions about the season you’re currently in: Does it have to be this long? Do I really need this circumstance? Is it necessary? Am I wasting time? God doesn’t waste the season we’re in, but sometimes we do. How can we not waste the current season we’re in when we’re so ready to see fruit in our lives?

Well, perhaps we start by asking ourselves, “What are some ways I might already be wasting my season?” Here are a few of my ways:

  • Mentally checking out until I see new circumstances
  • Using my time to numb my pain and disappointment
  • Distancing myself from God because I don’t know how to talk to Him about my frustrations
  • Shaming myself for not being happier
  • Not sowing with the harvest in mind

It’s easy to fall into these default modes without even realizing we’re doing it. I don’t think any of us are trying to waste the season we’re in. If anything, I think we just slip into a holding pattern, hoping something will change while we feel stuck in our lack of fruitfulness.

The other day, I felt defeated in the busyness of my current season, which has led to an unraveling of some healthy rhythms in my life—rhythms like time in the Word, physical exercise, and getting enough sleep.

My current ways were causing me to feel like I was withering. Guess what I chose to do in response? I scrolled Instagram reels, of course! We all know how much that helps. I checked out and defaulted to numbing the defeat rather than choosing to sow intentionally. And, in turn, I ended up unintentionally sowing wastefully.

So how do we avoid doing this? Psalm 1:1–3 gives insight into how not to waste our season:

“Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.

But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.

They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.

Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”

The psalmist compares and contrasts the characteristics of a healthy and fruitful tree in and out of season. The posture of verse one encourages us to be in alignment with God’s ways rather than worldly ways. It’s staying and abiding with God.

A tree planted by a riverbank is always connected to its source. It is continuously supplied with what it needs, regardless of the season. That does not mean that the tree will be full of leaves or in full bloom all the time, but it will continue to live. In contrast, a tree that’s disconnected from nutrients and water will wither, not because of a particularly harsh season, but because it’s not deeply rooted to a source that will help it endure all seasons.

The emphasis here isn’t on when a tree will yield its fruit. It’s the preparation necessary to ensure that it will be ready to produce fruit at some point. The point is that a tree will be fruitful in due season when it chooses to be deeply rooted from the beginning. We get to choose whether we will remain and stay close to the source of God’s Word in our current season, even when we can’t yet see the fruit we hope will come.

Fruit is not the product of just the season in which it’s obvious and manifest; fruit is born out of the rootedness of the plant, season after season. And guess what? We choose to remain rooted, but fruit is the Spirit’s work (Galatians 5:22–23). We can’t just will fruit into existence.

Do you see it, friend? A season of limitation may not define your season of harvest, but it will affect the way you grow. We must choose to sow with intention.

We won’t arrive at some day’s harvest without sowing today.