Appointed seasons
The God who changes the times
When the kings of the earth seemed to be the only powers that mattered, Daniel said something that put them all in their place: it is God who changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings. The rise of one empire and the fall of another, which looked to everyone else like raw history happening, was the work of a hand on the calendar. Centuries later Paul stands on the Areopagus and says it to a city full of philosophers: the God who made every nation from one blood has determined the appointed seasons, and the very bounds of where they would live. Nothing is loose. Nothing is unscheduled.
Upheaval almost always feels like the opposite of this. It feels like chaos slipping its leash, like the times running wild. But Scripture keeps insisting that the seasons are appointed, not accidental. The roughly five-hundred-year beat that Phyllis Tickle traced in the church's great rummage sales is, on this reading, not history misbehaving. It is the rhythm of the God who governs the times, renewing His people on a schedule He set before any of them were born.
“He changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding.”
— Daniel — Daniel 2:21 (WEB)
“He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation.”
This word spans all four phases. Disconnect, disorientation, reorientation, reconnect — none of them arrive by accident, and none of them outlast the season God appointed for them. What it asks is trust: to believe the shaking is scheduled, bounded, and governed, even when it looks like the times have come unhinged.
Your private shaking did not slip past God on its way to you. He changes the times and the seasons, and this one is yours for now, not forever. There is a particular terror in believing your upheaval is random — that it fell on you out of a meaningless sky, signifying nothing, answerable to no one. If that were true, the only sane response would be to brace and endure. Your shaking did not catch God off guard, and it is not happening in a vacuum where meaning has drained away. He changes times and seasons; this season of yours is one He appointed, and appointed seasons have edges.
This season came in on a date and will go out on one, and the One who set both edges is not anxious about either. That is the quiet mercy of the word season: a season is bounded. You may not be able to see the calendar; you are not meant to. But there is a hand on it, and the hand belongs to the God who has done this before and will do it again on time. Your upheaval is not loose in the world. It is held.
The Church's great upheavals recur with an almost seasonal beat. Phyllis Tickle, building on Mark Dyer, observed that roughly every five hundred years the hardened shell cracks and the Body holds a giant rummage sale: the fall of Rome, the Great Schism, the Reformation. Read as raw history, it looks like Christianity coming apart before a watching world. Read by Daniel and Paul, it is something else: the God who changes the times and removes and sets up kingdoms, renewing His Church on a schedule set before any of it was born. Tickle's pattern is an interpretive lens, not a prophecy, yet it points to a steadying truth: the seasons of the Body's shaking are appointed and bounded, and none outlasts the time the LORD assigned it.
The God who governs the times. Empires change, seasons turn, the calendar runs on; the hand that moves it does not. What cannot be shaken is that the One appointing your season is Himself outside all seasons, unhurried and unchanging.
- Where have I been treating my upheaval as random chaos rather than an appointed season?
- What would change if I believed this season had both an edge and a Hand on the calendar?
- Can I trust the God who changes the times to be unanxious about mine?
Lord, You change the times and the seasons, and this hard one is somehow on Your calendar. When it feels like chaos slipping its leash, remind me there is a Hand on it. Hold me through the season You appointed, until You bring it, on time, to its end. Amen.