How to Live One Season at a Time

One summer night, after a meal at our favorite sushi spot, my fortune cookie declared, “A great honor will be bestowed upon you in the next year.” Eight months later, I was offered an opportunity to teach at a local Christian college. By the end of that academic year, I had resigned.

The job was good. The colleagues were some of the best I’d worked with in my fifteen-year teaching career. Yet I sat in my campus office just before spring break, with my unsigned contract in front of me, knowing it would remain un-inked. I’d have to tell them I wasn’t coming back.

I was perplexed about why a job—a great honor—I’d felt called to less than a year ago was now what I needed to put down. I questioned my work ethic, rationality, and long-range planning savvy. Other people handle work-life balance just fine, so what was wrong with me?

“I could keep going,” I confessed to my husband, “but I worry nothing will be left of me.” The job of teaching first-year English courses was familiar. Take a group of eclectic eighteen-year-olds and teach them to think and write. Grade, and grade, and grade some more. The job was what I’d always known. But I had slammed into my finite limitations. And I didn’t like it.

If only my life ran like clockwork. If only I had a limitless supply of energy. If only my family and home demands were more manageable. If only I could hire an au pair and maid. If only I could survive on five hours of sleep. If only I could be more efficient and productive. If only I could be in two places at once.

I wanted to bend the reality of my circumstances to fit my preoccupations. But God had a different perspective to bend my heart around.

“Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:1, 2 NIV).

Not only does God know the story arc of the whole world, but he is also faithfully writing the middle chapter of my story. As God, he knows what he is doing. I recently confessed to friends that I needed God to show me his five-year plan. If not this journey as a college professor, Lord, then what? One friend started laughing: “A five-year plan? What’s that? Sounds stressful. Please don’t give me one of those!” Through our laughter, I realized that there is “a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away” (Eccl. 3:6 ESV).

Lord, may I dwell in you, like the generations before me, learning to trust you each step of the way as the one who sees and knows all.

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12 NIV).

I am only given a few decades to live this God-breathed life. I want to make the most of them. What that looks like depends on what I look to. Our culture says that to make the most of life, I need to make the most money, be the most successful, and acquire the most things. But God says that a heart stayed on him is the mark of a life well-lived. I like the feeling of achievement, earning awards and recognition, but if that is not what God has for me in this season, then may I learn to “consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8 NIV).

God, help me to make the most of my life because I’ve lived according to your wisdom for me in each season.

“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Ps. 90:14 NIV).

In seasons of chronic hurry, hurry, go, I barely have time to satisfy my stomach with breakfast, much less to satisfy the depths of my soul with God’s love. In every circumstance, his love is constant, near to me, and a treasure of great worth. While the variables of life ebb and flow, his love will satisfy and sustain me when I slow down and set my heart on him. Instead of tromping through my day overburdened with stress, a short fuse, and feelings of never enough, I can fill my heart with the riches of his love.

Lord, give me an appetite for your love, for your joy, and for your gladness.

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes establish the work of our hands” (Ps. 90:17 NIV).

In the months following my resignation, I still found myself scrolling through job postings and researching new degrees I could earn. As I was wrestling and restless in that space, Psalm 90 was my meditation: seek wholeness in God’s ancient wisdom and unending love, trusting that he is in every season for my good and for the work he gave me.

Lord, may your favor be ever upon us and the work of our hands be blessed by you.

Allison Byxbe is a writer and teacher who lives with her family in South Carolina. When she’s not pondering words, she enjoys hiking, learning about natural health, and drinking the perfect latte. Allison loves to connect with others about family, special needs parenting, mental health, grief, and faith. Her writing has been featured on The Mighty and Her View from Home, and you can find more of it on her blog Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy.