I don’t know about you, but it seems to me this year has blown by at a faster rate than before. Now I know time goes by at the same rate as it has for centuries. The days, weeks, months, and years have also gone by in the same rate they’ve always done but I still feel like life is passing me by faster than it ever has.   When I was much younger, it seemed like the summer months between when school ended and when school started back up again, seemed to last forever. In a weird way, I was anxious for school to start back up again.   Yet, when the school year was about to end, I could hardly wait for the summer months and summer vacation to start.    

My wife told me the other day that when she went into one store, Christmas decorations were already up for buyers to buy. Having worked in the grocery business for many years, I remember getting Christmas stuff to sell around October. Now, we are marketing Christmas while it’s 115 degrees outside; it’s just plain crazy how today we look to rush life just to make an extra buck.  

We read in Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” (emphasis added)   I am a watch person; I love wearing different watches and I very rarely leave home without having a watch on. A $50,000 Rolex watch keeps the same time at the same pace as a very inexpensive watch. Time is something we can’t change, no matter how hard we may try. If $50,000 Rolex watch says it 3pm in the afternoon, the inexpensive watch will say the same thing.  

There are four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Living in Vegas, we don’t experience Winters like they do back East, but it’s still Winter for us in Vegas.   I am always amazed at how certain tragedies/seasons take place in people’s lives that don’t take place in our lives. Yet, there are certain tragedies/seasons which take place in our lives that don’t take place in other people’s lives. People die at all ages, some way too young and under unexplainable tragedies.  

When we go to church, most of the time we have no idea what season of life the person in front or back of us or even next to us is going through. Sadly, too often we are so consumed with our own issues, we fail to think others may be going through something much worse than we are.   Speaking of the body of Christ, reading out of the NKJV the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:26 “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (emphasis added)  

When one has lost a loved one, for those of us who may have not lost a loved one, it’s difficult for us to relate to their loss. Yet, when we lose a loved one, we think everyone should feel our grief and we get angry if they fail to do so.   Life can pass us by so quickly, we can miss the beauty of suffering along with another person and being a comfort to them in their difficult season of life.  

If someone is rejoicing because of a wonderful season in their life, because we may not be in the same season they are in, we fail to rejoice with them.  

Are we so consumed with what is happening in our season that we miss what others are experiencing in their season of life? Lord help us to be sensitive to others seasons, we pray.