“Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
give careful attention to your herds;
24 for riches do not endure forever,
and a crown is not secure for all generations.” Proverbs 27:23-24

 

This beautiful proverb borrows from the life of work on a farm. Work is good and is a gift from God to us. Work is another way for us to enjoy God, and it is a gift which enables us to bless and care for others. Two aspects of farm work pull us back so that we can see all of work, no matter our vocation, with a God-shaped view: on the rhythms or seasons of life, the integration of life and work, and the reminder that God is always our “work partner”, the one who cares. (Proverbs 27:26-27)

 

Proverbs 27:25 tells us that there are seasons for hay to be removed, new grass to grow and for herbs to be gathered from the hills. I am not a farmer, but this should make sense to us. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 reminds us that there are many seasons in life, “A time to plant and a time to uproot . . . a time to mourn and a time to dance . . .” Farmers don’t fight the seasons, they recognize the season they are in and they lean into it as they adjust and flow with the greater rhythm of the year and the years as they come and go. This is a difficult season for most of the world, which means for many of us. We don’t have to like it but we can lean into the one who is the Lord of seasons and decades and ages, “both now and forevermore.”