Why did God create Seasons?

If you’re anything like me, in late August you eagerly anticipate the beginning of fall and the entire holiday season.  You can almost smell the eggnog lattes—my personal fave—and taste the pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies.  The first real sign of fall, the evenings are cooling down just a little.  Leaves change to orange, red and brown.  Well, in some places…

I currently live in Phoenix, where the temperature still hovers around 100 degrees, but I grew up in Washington State.  So, I’m really wishing for sweater season to begin!  In anticipation of fall, I’ve already put up my fall wreath.  I can at least pretend, I guess.

This week the question came to my mind, “Why did God choose to create seasons?”  He could have made the weather the same all-year round AND in every location of the world.  But He didn’t.  Why?

The first thing I considered was the idea of work.  The farmer plants in the Spring, cares for the crop through Summer, then harvests in the Fall.  The fields are cleared to rest during the colder season, Winter.  Then the process begins again.  That’s a lot of work, just to grow food. 

In the cooler seasons the leaves fall, the weather grows cold, and many things die or lie dormant.  Are seasons somehow tied to the fact that we live in a fallen world with sin?  That God told Adam and Eve they would have to toil and work the ground?  Is it symbolic of how everything and everyone will eventually die?  As Christ died to rise, so we will live again.  The promise of salvation and spending eternity in heaven with God gives us the hope of new and eternal life.

Genesis 1:14-16 Describes God creating the sun and moon, which cause the cycle of the year and seasons. 

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.

Psalms 104:19 says, ^“He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.”

Even though I’ve read Genesis 1, many times before, I’ve NEVER thought about the fact that God created seasons in the very beginning. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 poetically describes that there is a Time for Everything:  See verses 1 and 2: 

¹There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: ² a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.

If we consider our life, and the idea of being born, growing and dying, then seasons really are a shadow, a mirroring of what happens in our lives.  To take this analogy a step further, we could consider dying the end of our season.  Our children and grandchildren, literally the fruit from our seeds, are the next coming season.  My daughter is 4 months old, I have just recently enjoyed the joy of new life!

God also created seasons is because he is Creative!  Since He created us in His image, He made us to love and enjoy different things.  He wanted us to be able to experience beauty and variety, so provided this for us.  Think about how we react to the changing of the seasons.  Isn’t it funny how we are excited about the coming of Fall, of Winter, of Spring, AND the coming of Summer!  Usually near the end of each season we are good and ready for the next one!

Everything that God has created gives Him glory.  Think of God when you see the leaves changing and enjoy each new season.  Give Him the glory, and enjoy the coming of fall!

-Taylor