Flowers, short sleeves, and flip flops.

Allergies, pollen, and sunscreen.

Ah, spring.

While I welcome the end of winter each year, the change of seasons typically brings its own challenges. Bundling up with hats and boots is replaced by stocking up on sunscreen and making sure this fair-skinned family actually applies it.

But these changes in seasons are a fresh reminder of how time is moving along and how good things are in store. How do you approach different seasons in your life? Maybe it’s a job transition or a milestone for your children. Maybe it’s that big birthday that has been looming in front of you or maybe it’s realizing that for the past ten years life hasn’t changed that much -- that you’re in a long season.

I’ve appreciated how Willowdale Chapel has been marking the season of Lent this year. Specifically, we’ve been encouraged to look at our sin and seek out areas where we need to confess and even feel the weight of it if we haven’t done so in a while.

Hebrews 12 exhorts us that “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Of course Christ did shed his blood for our sin, which leaves us the freedom to “run with endurance the race that is set before us,” as the author of Hebrews explains.

But have you been struggling with your sin or has it become more of a quiet companion? What does this season of your spiritual life look like?

For this Lenten season, I’d encourage us all to examine what sins are getting too comfortable in our hearts and where we can (and should) confess and repent.

Who knows what new season God may usher into our lives as a result.