The Hidden Season – Healing and Growth in the Summer Season

 

A reflection inviting readers to notice something that has always been there: God not only appoints feast days, He also sanctifies the long, quiet seasons in between. 

 

 

Between the celebration of Shavuot and the sounding of the shofar at the Fall Feasts stretches a long, often-overlooked season in Israel’s calendar. There are no great pilgrim festivals during these summer months. No gathering of the nation in Jerusalem. No dramatic moments like the Exodus remembered at Passover or the giving of the Torah celebrated at Shavuot. 

Instead, there is qayits—summer. 

The Hebrew word qayits (קַיִץ) means more than simply a warm season. It also speaks of summer fruit, the harvest of ripe produce, and the gathering of what has quietly matured under the sun. It is the season when vineyards become heavy with grapes, olive branches bow beneath their fruit, figs soften with sweetness, and pomegranates fill with ruby-colored seeds. Much of the abundance described in Deuteronomy 8:8 reaches its fullness during these hidden months: 

“A land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey.” 

By the time Israel arrives at the Fall Feasts, these gifts have not appeared overnight. They have been slowly ripening through weeks of sunshine, heat, waiting, and faithful tending. 

Perhaps our own spiritual lives are more like qayits than we realize. 

We often treasure the mountaintop moments of faith—the breakthrough, the answered prayer, the conference, the retreat, the season when God seems to move in unmistakable ways. Yet much of God’s transforming work happens in quieter places. It unfolds during ordinary days that feel repetitive and unnoticed. We pray. We work. We wait. We remain rooted. Little seems to change, yet beneath the surface the Spirit is faithfully producing fruit. 

Scripture repeatedly joins together three gifts of the land: grain, new wine, and oil. Again and again this trio appears as a picture of covenant blessing. Grain nourishes the body. New wine brings joy. Oil provides light, healing, and anointing. Together they describe a life sustained by the goodness of God. 

Although the Old Testament does not command separate annual feasts for new wine and fresh oil as it does for Passover, Shavuot, or Sukkot, these harvests are woven naturally into Israel’s life of worship. The fruit had to be gathered before it could ever become an offering. The vineyards had to be harvested before there could be new wine. The olives had to be picked and pressed before fresh oil could fill the lamps of the Temple or anoint priests and kings. 

The rhythm of worship was inseparable from the rhythm of ripening. 

The rhythm of worship was built into the ordinariness of everyday life. 

The prophet Jeremiah offers us a glimpse of this reality after Jerusalem’s fall. He tells the remnant, “Gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels” (Jeremiah 40:10). Even in the midst of uncertainty, of imminent catastrophe, of dire circumstances, the work of gathering continued. God’s provision still came through the faithful harvest of the land. 

We can find deep comfort in that picture. 

Even when life feels uncertain and/or real disaster, God continues His hidden work of bringing fruit to maturity. 

 

 

The long summer reminds us that growth cannot be hurried. Grapes become sweeter because they remain on the vine. Olives yield their richest oil only after patient ripening and pressing. Figs do not mature because they strain; they mature because they remain connected to the tree that gives them life. 

Jesus re-iterated this same truth when He invited His disciples to abide in Him. Fruit is never manufactured by striving. It grows naturally from faithful communion with the One who is its source. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps this is why the hidden season matters so much. 

Before there is celebration, there is cultivation. 

Before there are firstfruits, there is faithful waiting. 

Before the offering can be given, the ripening comes. 

Maybe that is where you find yourself today. 

You may not be standing at a great spiritual milestone. No shofar is sounding. No feast is beginning. You may simply be living through the ordinary days of qayits—serving faithfully, praying quietly, healing slowly, trusting God when little seems to be changing. 

Do not despise this season. 

The hidden months are not empty months. 

They are the months when fruit forms. 

They are the months when joy deepens like new wine. 

They are the months when the Spirit prepares the oil of compassion, wisdom, and quiet strength. 

And when the appointed time arrives, what has been cultivated in secret becomes an offering of worship. 

The God who established the rhythm of grain, new wine, and oil is still at work today. He is the Lord of both the feast and the field, of both the celebration and the slow ripening that makes celebration possible. 

If you are walking through your own qayits, take heart. 

Remain rooted. 

Receive the warmth of His presence. 

Trust the unseen work of His Spirit.

 

The harvest He is preparing in you may be hidden for now,
but in His perfect season it will become an offering that brings glory to Him.