Changes

Recently was the Spring Equinox and the Famers Almanac tells us-

The first day of spring 2025 is (was) on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at 5:01 a.m. EDT (2:01 a.m. Pacific). For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is marked by the arrival of the spring equinox (otherwise known as the “First Point of Aries”).

So just last week we had a change of the seasons. From winter to spring. Now depending on where you might be, the difference is that the weather could be very different. For those of us who live in paradise, which is the state of Florida, it is pollen, some occasional fog in the morning and today it was 87 degrees.

Now over the next 3 months the days will get longer and on June 20, 2025, at 10:42 p.m. EDT (7:42 p.m. Pacific) the Summer Equinox will occur. Spring to summer, and again depending on where you live, the weather may be very different. All I can say is that here in paradise it will be hot. How hot, well time will tell.

Just like in the seasons and the weather there are seasons of life. Using the seasons and weather we can easily talk about the seasons of life. Scripture tells us though that the life span for a person in the early ages, it was not uncommon for someone to live to be over 900 years old. Methuselah was the oldest person ever and lived to be 969 years old. See Genesis 5:25-27.

Later there was to be a 120-year age limit on humanity, In Genesis 6:3 we read-

“Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.’”

However, Genesis chapter 11 records several people living past the age of 120. Then once we get past Noah we find that Moses stated and we read in Psalm 90:10-

“The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away”

Now there are some who live beyond the eighty years that Moses mentions. Some, even to 100 years. But it is also true that people are, for the most part, living longer today. Availability to Doctors and healthier opportunities along with a better life style people are living longer. Currently the average life expectancy in the United States is 79.4 years.

When you then consider the seasons of life it is easy to divide it up into 4-20 years spans. Spring is represented by years birth to 20 years. The summer would be represented by years 21-40. Fall would be represented by years 41-50. The winter then is represented by years beyond 51.

I am not preoccupied with death but rather with life. Life here in this wonderful creation that God has given us the opportunity to experience. That is the physical life we enjoy today. He has also given the privilege of eternal life. I can tell that for sure as I am as preoccupied with it as I am the life I live on any given day.

With the challenges of life, it is certainly hard sometimes to keep it all in perspective. You will remember that Ecclesiastes 3:1 says-

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

Then the writer continues to list the things that can and do happen in life. When you drop down to verses 18-20 it reads-

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.

19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.

20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

That is where we get the understanding that as we know God made Adam from the dust of the earth. We, as do all creatures, return as ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

That speaks to the physical but we are more than flesh and blood. God has set apart human life from all other life forms. Humans are the only beings created in God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27 says-

“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”

So, enjoy all the seasons of the year and be sure to enjoy all of the seasons of life. Yesterday is history and can never be repeated. Today is what we live, all 24 hours of it and well tomorrow is not a promise but simply a possibility, God willing.

In God’s Grace,

Elbert Nasworthy