There are times and seasons in our lives. In fact, we have to know them and learn to cooperate with the times and seasons that occurs in our lives because we don’t control time or season. There are many people who pretend to know the times and seasons of God or even the climate of our earth. The sons of Issachar are known to have discerned the times and seasons of God and understood what Israel was supposed to do (1 Chronicles 12:32). Why is it very important to know the times and seasons of God? Or why do we need to know the times and seasons that we are in? Meteorologists or scientists who study weather patterns and climate would tell you that by studying the tracks of typhoons, hurricanes, patterns of rainfall and wind speed, they could predict more accurately the occurrence of typhoon, the areas to be affected and probably the magnitude of its impact and this could help save lives.

Farmers and fishermen would tell us that if they don’t pay attention everyday to the weather briefings from the radio and TV, this could endanger their livelihoods as well as their families. James tells us that farmers ought to be imitated in their patience for waiting for the early and latter rain (James 5:7). Farmers are known to be patient, diligent in following the time and season that occur in nature and take their time very seriously. They know when to plough, scatter the seed, weed the fields and wait for the grains to mature and then harvest them. Like them, the Lord Jesus instructs us to be even more diligent in knowing the times and seasons of God. My question is do you know the times that we are in?

Do you know the seasons of your life? Everyone knows and understand that when the leaves fall, it is autumn and when the trees are entirely bare, it is winter, and when the trees gain leaves and flowers began to appear, it is spring time and when the trees and flowers are in full bloom, we know it is summer. Do you know that every time spring and summer occurs the trees and the animals are given a time frame to actually gather their own food, complete a part of their life cycle and scatter their seeds? Although they may look dormant during the winter, they are alive and well during spring.

Unless we know and understand the seasons that we are in personally, as a congregation and as a Christian believer, we will be at lost. Those who don’t know their time don’t value much their destiny. Those who know their time, knows what to do with it and take action. This is the reason why a farmer will need to plough during the spring season and harvest during summer because during winter, there is hardly a harvest when the elements are against what you are doing. Therefore it helps us much if we understand where we are spiritually.

One time while walking back home during our evening walks, my daughter asked a very poignant and surprising question: papa why do the leaves of trees change their colors during autumn? I was stunned by her innocent but very sharp observation. Without much thinking, I told her, iha, trees fit their skins to their seasons. When it is a season to shed their leaves, they have to do it or otherwise, they will die. They shed their leaves so that they can concentrate on storing their food during winter instead of losing it by their leaves. Do you know the process of photosynthesis? It needs light, it needs water, it needs carbon dioxide. But during autumn and winter, light is limiting which prevents them from actually manufacturing their own food. What more? Trees know that there is a narrow margin of profit in gaining food during these lean months, but the food they stored during spring and summer will be enough for their period of dormancy. Food is necessary to survive and gain strength of standing still against all your enemies.

In fact, in the battlefield, those who don’t eat, starve and die. Napoleon’s army of more than 600,000 soldiers that marched into the heart of Russia perished during the harsh Russian winter because of lack of food. The Russian generals and people outwitted Napoleon by starving him and his army as they marched in retreat due to the severe weather. During World War II the same thing happened to Hitler; under the cloak of darkness he started “Operation Barbarrosa” that started in Blitskrieg victory with the target of seizing the Russian oil fields in order to secure his fuel needs for his empire and army. Without oil, he could not run his ammunitions factories as well as his armies.

But he miscalculated the determination and courage of the Russian soldiers to stand against him so that “Operation Barbarossa” turned to be a defeat as the Russians changed their tactics into guerrilla warfare and their strength increased as the winter approached. With lack of fuel, ammunitions and food, the German soldiers eventually succumbed to the harsh winter and started retreating. As a result, of the more than 1 million soldiers deployed for the operation, about a fourth died, and more than one third was wounded in the operation that ended in defeat and Hitler lost many able soldiers and generals. His obstinate resolve to take the Russian oil fields cost him his army and thousands of panzers were lost.

Likewise, the Christian life is full of battles and conflicts that needed to be won. If you look around you, pretty well you might fear that we are an outcast of the society in general, we are very few in numbers. But when God determines that we have reached the time when He is about to move in the land, the number does not matter compared to the resolve and determination of the few to stand and take courage to take the land and conquer it for victory.

The purpose of war is to gain victory and there is no real victory until we have an occupation forces. Purpose however dictates the warfare to be used and the targets to be resolved. Likewise, unless we learn to take hold of God’s truth in greater morsels every day, unless we build ourselves deeply into the word of God, we won’t be strong enough against the onslaughts of the enemy. It is clear that the goal of the enemy is to surround every Christian nation and destroy them within and without. He wants to turn every Christian believer, family, city and country into his own stronghold. It is clear that the last days will be filled with circumstances that could cause many to stumble and their hearts will grow cold. But that situation should not be our trajectory. We are given better promises than failing…if we endure to the end, and hope against all odds, we will prevail and be delivered. Those who stand for truth and for righteousness will shine like the stars in the heaven above. Those who resolve to fight for God will have given themselves to a most worthy cause, a cause worth living for and worth fighting.

For instance, there were four lepers during the time that the Assyrians surrounded and took Samaria as hostage so that the people inside the city gates were crying for help. Women were cooking their own helpless babies for lack of food and even the people were plotting to kill the prophet Elisha for lack of a timely Word of God about their situation. However, the lepers, the useless dregs of society left to die without food and shelter (who were always found outside the city gate) because they were condemned as outcasts, condemned to die, in a twist of fate, found themselves the conduit of the miraculous! (See 2 Kings 6:24-33; 7:1-20).

The moment they determined that they will go and spoil the camp of the enemies, they received their deliverance. Because of the courage of the few lepers to traverse the unknown, the whole city of Samaria was delivered from famine. What do we learn from here? As it is written: “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God” (1 Cor 1:26-30 NASB).

God delights in using the ordinary to perform the extraordinary

Look and see, could the Lord open the windows of Heaven? Could God use me to bring tomorrows wonders? Could God use me as His mighty instrument to bring peace and reconciliation? Could God use me to preach the Gospel of His Kingdom? We ask many questions that deter us from walking into the unknown, from seeing things by faith and from moving into the miraculous. All that it takes is for us to believe and then to see. Because the lepers determined to move into the unknown in spite of their hindrances and obstacles, in spite of their sufferings, God used their movements to bring commotion into the enemy’s camp and they flee.  But the servant of the king who did not believe the Word of God from the prophet’s mouth did not find any food, any benefit or even any deliverance because the moment he saw the opportunity, he died of trampling.

Every time God opens a window of opportunity for us and we know deep inside our hearts that we want it badly, that God wants it for us but we refuse it, we are also killing the opportunity for faith to grow in us. But the men and women of faith, those who by courage and determination are pushing themselves to enter heaven, to become God’s ministers, to become God’s conduit for His revelation, for His food, for His healing, for His miracle, for His deliverance, for His goodness, these shall find joy beyond description in knowing and experiencing that they are satisfied with plenty. Yes, those who in spite of their limitations, in spite of their weaknesses, are living by faith, and taking every word of God by faith, taking His word and His promises seriously and believing them, these are the ones blessed by God because God is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently, not casually.

Is there lack in your relationship with your parents? Is there lack in your relationship with your spouse? Is there lack in your relationship with God? Is there lack in your relationship with His people? Determine that like these four lepers, you won’t wait until you die before you reconcile with His people, with your children, with your spouse or with your God. Faith and patience brings the promises of God to harvest righteousness. If we take hold of faith, if we take the risk, although we risk being stoned, having a thick face, yet we will be rewarded for faith brings into today what is for tomorrow! What is my evidence aside from the four lepers? Look at Mary, she was able to make Jesus do the miracle of wine when it was not convenient for Him.

God uses the simple to shame the wise of this world

By using the useless lepers, the discards of the society, God shamed the king and his army who actually disbelieved His Word. It is an incontrovertible law in the spirit that those who take God at His word will be used by Him to do mighty things. Those who come to Him by faith and believe in Him that He can do all things through them have great faith. God rewards faith, God rewards risk takers. Once we determine that there is no turning back in our consecration and dedication to God’s service, the enemy can do nothing, he will flee in all directions.

David, a great man of God, had an outstanding relationship with the Lord. In a time when the trend to worship God was only found in the temple and when the only way to do this was by temple worship through full time ministers like priests, David worshipped God in the fields of Bethlehem. He was only a shepherd boy, a teenager alone in the hills, faithfully serving his father by looking at his flocks when His hunger for the presence of God filled Him with awe and love so that he was never the same again. He was certainly no stranger to the way we worship God today, not in Jerusalem only or in a temple made with hands of man but God can be worshipped anywhere because we worship by spirit and truth. David hungered for God, desired Him more than anything else and cried, Lord, my heart aches for thee, longs for thee, longs to worship thee.

A similar promise was made by the Lord for our generation: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). In parallel to this, Evan Roberts, the Welsh revivalist in 1904-1905 was a young man in his late 20s when he decided that he will take God at His word and bring heaven to all Wales. That revival preceded and later gave birth to the Azusa street revival in Los Angeles which also touched millions of lives and continues to touch billions more through the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement that it also gave birth until this day. Because a bunch of simple, ordinary folks believed that God can walk the earth again like in Palestine, He rewarded their faith to give birth and bring deliverance to the lukewarm in heart.

God moves in everyday settings not just when we are inside the church

Just as God used the four lepers to change the destiny of their countrymen, these outcasts turned heroes, demonstrates to us the grace of God available in our workplace. He can touch millions of lives through you and in you whether in the church or in the workplace. There should be no difference. Our God is bigger than the four-square walls of this church, He cannot be put into a box and say, move here only. If we allow Him to touch the lives of others through us in our workplace, many more souls will come to Him. My question to you is this, now that we are at this juncture of time when God who no longer lives in bricks and temples built by human hands, how much do you actually long for God? In honest assessment of ourselves, how much time do you spend complaining and being bitter over your situations, over your spouse and children instead of being thankful to God for giving you a wonderful family? Have you been thankful to God everyday of your life for your salvation and growing knowledge of Him?

We all long to be used by God inside our cosy churches, but just as He used David to do mighty exploits in the hills and mountains far from the church buildings, it seems clear that the Almighty can be comfortable working through us whether in the fields or in the church. Thus, we should be as close to God and expectant of His miracle whether we are in the workplace or in the church because God can move in everyday settings.

Do you know what? I can testify that even during the making of my thesis and its publication, God was very much involved. When I do not know what to do about the tags of my setups, God gave me a brilliant idea just what to do and when I do not know how to estimate the amount of area to be covered, He again gave me a wonderful idea how to do it. I believe the Lord wants to do the same in your situation whether as a nurse, an office worker or a full time housewife. If we seek Him with all our hearts, we will find Him! Yes God still delights in using the broken reed, those who are bowed down to Him, those who are consecrated for His honor and glory.