[F]or everything that is revealed is Light. Therefore it says, “Awaken yourself, you who are sleeping, and arise out of the dead, and the Messiah will shine upon you.” Look diligently, then, at how you walk—not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:14-16, MJLT)

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, He set in motion a perpetual cycle of seasonal changes. Mankind, then, responded to and lived closely in accordance with those changes—changes many of us can largely ignore today, as we shuttle ourselves from one climate-controlled building to the next. But before there was the Internet or cars or supermarkets, people had to truly labor for their food. Literally, we had to harvest our own grains and raise our own livestock, and the longest and hardest season for working was summertime. People didn’t take vacations or time off from work or school like they do today—they toiled in the fields, in the exhausting heat of the sun, to bring in the life-giving harvest.

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