12032022 Closed for the Season

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of our always-available God. I recently decided to pick up some locally-made jam as Christmas presents. I found a website listing local farm stands and stores. As I perused the list, I kept coming across “closed for the season” – in September, October – and it’s now December. Finally, I found one that I could visit this morning, on the last day before they also “closed for the season.” This reminded me of the wonderful truth that God never closes.

God does not have business hours. One of the frustrations of those who work is that it seems many businesses are open only at the times that they themselves are working. Evenings and weekends? Sorry. But God is always open. “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17). “He that keepeth thee will not slumber” (Psalm 121:3).

God does not close for the season. With some businesses, if you miss their prime selling season, you have to wait until next year, but never with God. Thomas Chisholm captures this truth in his hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” “Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,/ Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above/ Join with all nature in manifold witness/ To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.” God oversees, rules, protects, provides, and guides from January 1 to December 31.

God never goes out of business. When businesses close, people have to search out new sources; they may lose out on gift card redemption, extended service contracts, or trusted expertise. The children and grandchildren are unable to shop in the same stores. Not so with God. “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth” (Psalm 119:90).

As you labor for this always-available God, you can hope in the one who is perpetually at your side, the one who sends both the early and the latter rains. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9). The one producing the harvest isn’t going anywhere. He is there for the plowing and the sowing. He is there for the waiting. He will be there for the harvest. God is never “closed for the season.”

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA