Time to begin a new season
David Jones on how faith can be tested during the seasons of the year
IT’S often said that nothing much goes on in August.
The schools and colleges are in recess and it’s the main month for holidays, with many comings and goings.
Politically, with Parliament and our National Assembly closed for business, there’s an air of those hazy, lazy days of summer around.
Historically, of course, a lot has been going on in August. A recent article I read by Philip Johnston was a reminder that while we have been making our way to the beach some of the biggest stories and events actually happened.
In 1914 the First World War began, in 1945 atom bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Vietnam War broke out in 1964. Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe both died in August, not to mention the Great Train Robbery in 1963. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and of course Diana, Princess of Wales tragically died on August 31, 1997.
August, of course, does not have the monopoly of world events but even a break from the pros and cons of politics, and especially Brexit, has to be welcomed. Next month the political wheels will begin again, taking us on a journey to even more claims and counterclaims on the referendum decision we made in 2016.
Schools and colleges will open their doors with some children beginning their schooldays while others will, for the first time, be leaving home for college and university and that’s a challenge in itself.
However, for most of us life will go on and as the autumn leaves begin to fall we will be ever aware that the old proverb is true: ‘Time and tide wait for no one!’
So, with the summer over and August all but gone, perhaps we need to begin a new season in our own lives.
Like those youngsters starting school or college with the whole adventure of learning opening up before them, we too can begin a new chapter.
The Bible invites us to learn of God and his love for us. To revive a flagging faith or to seek faith for the very first time. The times and seasons of our lives may not always have been easy and life not as we would have wanted it to be.
From the warmth of the height of summer to the biting cold of winter, life may have taken its toll.
Faith is God’s gift to us, in believing hope can be rekindled and God’s love revealed to us as we journey on with him. Jesus said: “I will be with you even to end of the age” — winter, spring or summer — that’s the assurance of faith and the joy of all the seasons of our lives.