8/31/22
Hey, before we jump in and wrap up the four Seasons Of Life, I want to tell you that I’d love to be your Life Coach and help you navigate through whichever season you find yourself stuck in right now. Let me help you evaluate what it is you want and what you need to do to get it. I’ll give you some actionable steps that will help bring clarity and confidence in the decisions you have made, and then walk with you to nourish and protect all that you dream about and desire for the future.
I’ve put a link in the show notes for a free 30-minute call just so we can see if we’re a good fit to work together and show you how Life Coaching would work for you.
Alright, let’s jump in.
It’s finally Fall. Okay, not really. Not in reality. It’s late August at the time of this recording and it’s still hot and humid in Houston. But, the past three weeks, we’ve been moving through the seasons of life. We started with Winter, which makes space to learn about ourselves and sets us up for creating something new in the Spring. Last week we talked about Summer. Summer shows signs of growth from those seeds planted. It’s a time to nourish and protect what was planted in the Spring - your faith, your dreams, your decisions, your plans for another beautiful life.
And now, here we are at the life season that is Fall. This is the moment of truth. This is the place where we see the fruits of our labor from Spring…or the lack thereof. If you have learned, prepared, and rested in Winter; if you have planted the seeds of possibility and faith in order to create something new in your life in Spring; and if you have nourished and protected those dreams and desires all Summer long, then now is the time that you will see an abundant harvest of all that God has been working in your life.
But, if you sat in denial or had yourself a pity party, or buffered your way through Winter, then you had no good seeds with which to plant in the Spring. You had nothing to nourish and protect in the Summer, and now your Fall will not produce a desired outcome. It can come with great regret for not having done the good work in the previous seasons of life. Fall is defined by successes and achievements, OR failures. Fall is evidence of the way you have lived, what you believed, how serious you were about wanting something new, and where you have put your hope and trust throughout the other three seasons of life.
That takes us right back to Galatians 6:7, “Whatever you sow, you shall reap.” Fall is when you find out what it is you sowed, exactly. You CAN sow laziness and complacency. You can sow dread, fear, and worry. You can sow pessimism, lack of trust, and defeat. Whatever you sow, you will reap. Sow dread and fear, and you will get more dread and fear. More of it. Sow distrust and defeat and you will surely get an abundance of distrust and defeat in every area of your life. It’ll just keep building. Germinating. Spreading and growing into a monster that consumes and overtakes you. And what you realize then is that you’ve been sowing - you’ve been planting - weeds all this time. On purpose.
So, what do you do if you realize you’ve been planting weeds? The first thing to do is to own up it. Take responsibility for your results. Jim Rohn, in his book The Seasons of Life, says “For those who failed to take full advantage of the spring, who failed to guard their crops carefully throughout the heat of summer, there can be no legitimate reasons…only excuses, and excuses are merely apologetic attempts to place blame on circumstances rather than on ourselves.” Seems like a harsh statement, but it’s true. We are the only ones responsible for what’s going on in our lives and how we’re experiencing it.
If you’ve been following this podcast, you’ve heard me say this a time or two, your belief system is fueling your thoughts. Your thoughts about a particular circumstance create certain feelings. Out of those feelings you act a certain way, which give you results in your life that you like or don’t like. If we procrastinate or are lazy in the Spring, it’s because we have certain thoughts and feelings that lead to the action of procrastination and laziness. If we have feelings of dread or fear, it’s because of the thoughts we’re entertaining in our head that are making us feel that way, not the circumstances themselves. If we experience a “barren field” in the Fall, it’s only because we planted weeds. If you remember from last week - the life season that is Summer - Summer was a time to protect the dreams, hopes, reinvention, plans for another beautiful life by pulling up the weeds of bad habits, pessimism, doubt, negative thoughts, lie-based beliefs and attitudes. That even includes pulling up the weeds that are those people around you that are influencing your life in a negative or harmful way. Spiritually, it meant protecting your faith-walk - protecting that time you’ve set aside to read your Bible and pray and worship. It’s a time to not let the diligence of seeking God slip out of routine. Pull up the weeds of complacency and boredom in your spiritual life. Pull up the lazy and self-destructive thoughts that you can just set your Bible aside for a few months to play and relax.
Yes, we’re supposed to be removing weeds, not planting them on purpose. They will undoubtedly choke out any opportunity for something new in your life.
The great news about a failed crop is that there’s opportunity to strip the land and start over. The only time something is truly a failure is if you refuse to learn something in it and make adjustments for the future. You can look back at each season to understand what you need to do differently next time to reap a bountiful harvest next Fall. When you look at all the people around you, you may see them living in an abundance - whether that be spiritual, emotional, physical, or even material. Listen, this didn’t just happen by chance. The abundance is the result of walking through each of the seasons well - doing what needs to be done to move into and through the next season in order to reap that abundance. No doubt there were successes AND failures along the way. There were times of celebration and times of pain and regret. But the harvest gets more and more bountiful each year because they learned from those successes and failures and made adjustments for executing in the Spring. You can, too.
You reap what you sow. Jim Rohn says, “In all areas of the human existence, be aware that what we put into this world, we get back from it. It is nature’s way of “evening the score.” Both thoughts and actions determine the result, the lifestyle, and the human attitude. Lies, sooner or later, attract lies in return.”
Friend, Fall tells us if we have really done that which is required. And if we’re experiencing Fall’s abundance, this is the time to store up reserves that will carry over into the next season of life that is Winter. It is in the Fall when we discover how long or short Winter will be, based on the amount of those reserves. These are the seasons of life. They are not in our control, but what is in our control is the way we decide to learn and change and grow. We can’t change the seasons but we can change ourselves. You have the ability to determine the abundance of your next Fall by learning, preparing, planting, nourishing, and protecting your dreams and desires for another beautiful life.
Hey friend, don’t forget click the link in the show notes to get the free, downloadable guide that complements this episode. It’s like a little Life Coaching at home.
Have a wonderful week, friends, full of God’s beautiful abundance. See you next Wednesday for the next episode of Another Beautiful Life podcast.
