Change in God’s Garden
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything, A season for every activity under the heavens:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace
Changing Seasons
Creation is filled with change. Night alternates with day. The sun moving across the sky. The winds blowing, and the clouds changing shape before our eyes. Plants and animals also change along with the seasons. Babies of many types are born in the spring time. While food is plentiful in the summer, animals spend most of their time eating, trying to put on extra fat for the winter.
Trees in our area survive winter in a different way. During the summer, trees perform photosynthesis. To do this the trees are constantly pulling water up from their roots, through their trunks, branches, and twigs, and into their leaves where water evaporates back into the air. If trees tried to continue photosynthesis in the winter, they run the risk of water freezing inside of their tissues, damaging their bodies from the inside out. Our trees teach us that change is often a necessary part of life.
Check out this video, showing how sunflower plants move throughout the day so that their leaves receive more of the Sun’s energy that helps them grow.
Look for CHANGE this week as a family. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Adopt-A-Tree: Choose a tree that you can visit on a regular basis. Draw a picture and write a description of how the tree looks now. Notice shapes, colors, textures, sizes, and parts of the tree.
Talk about how you would expect this space to look differently during the other three seasons of the year.
Come back periodically to see what changes happen.
Reach out to someone who is going through a change of some kind in their life. Pray for God to help them through any challenges that this change might be bringing to them.
Take some time to talk as a family about any changes that are occurring in your lives. Maybe someone is losing a tooth or going to a new school or getting a new job. Remind each other that change is a natural part of life.
Watch this video showing the growth process of different vegetables from seed to harvest
Vegetable Timelapse Video
All In & IF by Mark Batterson
“One of our fundamental spiritual problems is this: we want God to do something new while we keep doing the same old thing.”
“Going all out for God is not just about getting where God wants you to go. It’s about who you become in the process.”
“Too often our prayers revolve around changing our circumstances, when sometimes those circumstances are the very thing God is using to change us.”
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr
“It must have been recognized that to go forward there is always something that has to be let go of, moved beyond,”
“Life, as the Biblical tradition makes clear, is both loss and renewal, death and resurrection, chaos and healing at the same time; life seems to be a collision of opposites.”
“There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life. It will sound an awful lot like the voices of risk, of trust, of surrender…Up to now everything is mere preparation. Finally, we have a container strong enough to hold the contents of our real life, which is always filled with contradictions and adventures and immense challenges.”
Monastery of the Heart by Joan Chittister
Life is not a set of constants to which we cling for security or seek for affirmation. On the contrary, life is often confusing and blurred, unsure under foot, tentative and shaky to the touch.”
“[Come & learn] how less is also more: how less competition means more peace, less jealousy means more contentment, less need for things means more satisfaction, less self-centeredness means more happiness, and less corrosive personal ambition leaves more room for the loving presence of God.”