Is It a Season or a Rut? A Financial Wake-Up Call — SAMUELDEUTH.COM
One of the more helpful revelations that kickstarted our own journey from lack to abundance came during a conversation with our friend Dr. Matt Hubbard. Katie and I were talking with him about the state of our finances, and we said what a lot of people say when things feel stuck: "It's just a season we're in — things will change if we keep at it."
He asked a simple question back: "How long has it been this way?"
Embarrassingly, we said, "About fourteen years."
He didn't flinch. He just said, "That's not a season. That's a rut."
The Difference Between a Season and a Rut
That sentence shook me loose from being okay with rut-living. Think about the length of a normal season — three or four months. If you've been "in a season" for a few years, you're not in a season anymore. You're in a rut, and ruts don't fix themselves with more patience. They need a change in direction.
Scripture actually warns us about exactly this pattern:
"Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing." — Proverbs 20:4 (NIV)
Don't miss what that verse is actually saying: don't look for a harvest you never planted. So many of us get frustrated that we're not seeing a harvest in some area of life, but if we're honest, we often haven't sown the seed for that harvest in the first place. There's no shortcut around the sowing-and-reaping principle God built into the world:
"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." — Genesis 8:22 (NIV)
That principle holds whether we like it or not. We can't expect a harvest from a season we didn't invest in.
How to Tell Which One You're In
So how do you actually know if you're in a legitimate waiting season versus a rut? It's a fair question, because we all get impatient with hidden, hard seasons, and it's easy to mislabel patience as being stuck.
Here's how I've learned to check. First, I pray and ask God for insight — checking whether I'm missing something in my own circumstances that He's actually trying to speak to me about. If that doesn't turn anything up, my next move is to seek the wisdom of trusted friends, pastors, or mentors who can look at the situation from outside it. If you're stuck, it won't produce. If you're planted, it may stay dark for a while before you emerge into the sunlight — but it's still moving toward something.
Mentors are especially valuable here because they've often already walked through the stage of the journey you're standing in. They can diagnose quickly what you can't see clearly from inside your own situation. In my own life, this has worked both directions — when I visit a church in ministry, I can often tell quickly why it is or isn't growing, because my experience is beyond that pastor's current stage. The same thing happens to us financially when we surround ourselves with people who've already fought and won the battles we're currently facing. Their confidence rubs off. Giants that feel massive to you can look small to someone who's already beaten one like it, and that's exactly the kind of person who can help you conquer yours.
Don't let pride, arrogance, or insecurity turn a season into a rut. I remember feeling genuinely embarrassed about our financial situation for years. But eventually I faced it head-on instead of hiding it, and let the wisdom coming my way actually land instead of bouncing off my pride.
Where to Start
If you've been telling yourself "it's just a season" for longer than a season actually lasts, take that as your invitation to stop and actually check. Pray honestly and ask God what you might be missing. Then bring one trusted person into the conversation this week — not to fix it for you, but to help you see clearly whether you're planted or stuck.
If you're ready to move from insight into action, I put together a free resource that takes this and thirty other biblical wealth principles and turns each one into three simple, doable action steps — the Biblical Wealth Action Sheet. It's built for exactly this moment: when you know something needs to change and you just need a concrete next step. You can grab it here: Biblical Wealth Action Sheet.
You can also find the fuller picture of this principle, and thirty others like it, in The Power to Create Wealth, and more resources like this inside the Following Jesus app.
