You have to know what time it is for you.

You can't control time. You can't speed it up. You can't slow it down. You can't make it do anything different other than what time does. You can't say to time, "I'm really enjoying this. Slow down." You can't say to time, "I am really hating this. Speed up." In fact, it works the opposite. If you're having a real good time and say, "Oh, I want to save this moment forever," zip…it goes by.

What you can control is you. You can manage you. What you do with your time is determined by your priorities, by what matters to you, and that's where you make the investment. You can't do everything, but you have to know what time it is to do what you think is important.

You have to know what time it is for you. Just as there are seasons in nature, there are seasons in your life. Now the challenge is, these seasons don't necessarily line up with the seasons on the calendar; but there are seasons in your life.

You live in a culture that tells you it is always spring. It's always an opportunity for growth. You should always be growing. That's not true. You live in a culture that says you always should be busy, always growing, always starting something new, and always anticipating, always in this anxious kind of effort to make something new happen.

It may be summer, which is hard, hard work—a busy time. It may be fall. If it is, celebrate. Something has come to an end. If you've finished a project, ended a time of mission, celebrate. This has been a good time, and some good things have happened. Celebrate the harvest and get ready for winter. You have to know what time it is for you.

Winter does some important work. The roots go deep in winter. The earth is replenished and prepares for spring, catches its breath and nourishes itself; and things die in winter. That's hard and you’d like everything to keep on going all the time. But it can't. There’s not enough space in your life; there's not enough time in your life. There's a necessary time in your life to let things go.

Let winter do its work. Don't try to start anything new; don't try to make something happen. Winter is the time when God, through His Spirit, calls you to be quiet. He calls you to a time. He calls you to a time of nourishment and preparation. You need to know what time it is for you. It may be winter; and if it's winter, good. Important things happen in winter. Let winter do its work. Scripture calls you to be effective in the use of your life the time He has given to you, and you get to choose how to invest it. So Invest in those things that make a difference, those things that last?