Tuesday, June 22

A time for everything

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3-4, Psalm 73, 1 Timothy 2

Ecclesiastes 3:1–11 

1 There 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, 

3 a time to kill and a time to heal, 

a time to tear down and a time to build, 

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, 

a time to mourn and a time to dance, 

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 

6 a time to search and a time to give up, 

a time to keep and a time to throw away, 

7 a time to tear and a time to mend, 

a time to be silent and a time to speak, 

8 a time to love and a time to hate, 

a time for war and a time for peace. 

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Observation/application

I can’t read this passage without the classic Byrd’s song “Turn, Turn,Turn” (written by Pete Seeger) playing in my mind!

Three big ideas jump out at me.

First, there is a time or season for everything.  Life is a series of times or seasons, starts and stops.  

  • My season as lead pastor of Life Center recently ended, and I started a new season as founding pastor.  
  • I jogged for almost 50 years and loved it; that season ended with my second knee surgery, and I started a new season of different kinds of exercise.  
  • I started riding my motorcycle when the kids were safely out of school; there is still some time in this season, but I know it will end one day.  (I probably shouldn’t be riding when I’m 80 or 90!)  When that season ends, what new season will begin?  
  • There is a time to speak and a time to be silent, and I’m learning to discern those times.  

This is the trick: to know when is the right time, to discern the season.  Is this season over?  Is a new season beginning?  Is this the time…or not?

Second, everything is beautiful in its time.  When one season ends and another begins, there may be a sense of loss.  But there is also a gain.  Everything is beautiful in its season or time.  I can’t jog, but I love walking and Laina and I enjoy doing that together.  I’m slower but more thoughtful.  I’m more limited physically but more in touch emotionally.  Each new season and each new opportunity has its own beauty.  So while we mourn the end of one season, we embrace the beauty of the new.  

This is the trick: to discern the beauty of each new season even while we appropriately mourn the end of the old season.

Third, God has set eternity in the human heart.  Above all the times and seasons of our lives rises this hope for eternity.  We long for life to continue, not end.  Our lives are a series of starts and stops, times and seasons, but through it all, we long for eternity, for life that goes on and never ends.  Recently, one of my atheist friends told me that he wishes our faith was true because he would like to live forever.  I think that’s universal; I think God placed eternity in our hearts.

That longing for eternal life is there to draw us to God, who is that life.

Lots to think about in this passage…

Prayer: Lord, help me to fully embrace the beautiful things in this season of my life.