January 3, 2011 Seasons

TO EVERYTHING there is a season,
and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to break down and a time to build up,
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away,
A time to rend and a time to sew,
a time to keep silence and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What profit remains for the worker from his toil?
I have seen the painful labor and exertion and miserable business which God has given to the sons of men
with which to exercise and busy themselves.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds
[a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy],
yet so that men cannot find out what God has done
from the beginning to the end.
I know that there is nothing better for them than to be glad
and to get and do good as long as they live;
and also that every man should eat and drink
and enjoy the good of all his labor--it is the gift of God.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Amplified Bible).

The beginning of the year seems a good time to look at the Teacher’s immortal words above. For thousands of years these verses have been set down on plaques, woven into tapestries, stitches onto samplers, recorded as pop music, quoted in and out of context…seldom lived by.

I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to want to have things change NOW, not wait for the proper season. I planted those seeds yesterday! Why is there no fruit?

I’m good with the whole “there is a time to be born” thing, the laughing, the embracing. I can sew, stack stones, keep, speak. I can enjoy dancing without being “a dancer.” I want to live, encourage, and nurture a peaceful environment. I don’t love well enough, but I easily buy into the need to work on that area. But a time to die? To pluck up what has been carefully cultivated? I don’t want to lose or mourn or weep or hate or kill…and yet there is an appropriate time, biblically, for all of those things to occur.

There is a season for everything.

There is a time for every matter.

We usually read the words so quickly, but “every” is an awesome idea. It means ALL. EACH. If we have settled in our minds and hearts that God exists, then we must also believe that everything is under control.

Did you lose a job? Get evicted? God is still on the throne.

Is your marriage in trouble? Your children making poor choices? God is still on the throne.

Are you struggling with a decision? Wishing life was different? God is still on the throne.

I’m right there with you. At this moment, I am keenly aware of many things in my own life and in the lives of those I love that I cannot “fix” even if my desire is to do just that. Looking at them from every possible angle until I have a crook in my neck, there are no words I can say to make them all better. There is nothing I can do to straighten the tangles out—broken relationships impossible for me to restore. Physical and financial difficulties completely beyond my abilities and means.

And yet, if I believe the words of Ecclesiastes, I must accept the fact that in God’s plan, there is a time for that sick loved one to die. The estranged couple I pray for may need to “refrain from embracing.” That family in need make be going through a God-ordained “time to break” for reasons I could never imagine. A dream may need to die. Even hate and war and killing have their place in the universe.

For what it’s worth, I don’t get it most of the time. I fume and worry and overthink things until the crook in my neck turns me into a pain. But God makes “all things beautiful” in his own time. Happiness isn’t the only thing, but apparently the creator of the universe ranks it fairly high, where his children are concerned. “Be happy and enjoy (your)selves as long as (you) live,” he is telling us.

Through his word, it is as if God says, “Eat, drink, take pleasure in the things and people and emotions and senses I’ve given you. Just realize that in my plan, there are cycles of growth and decay, life and death, building up and tearing down. Things will happen that do not promote ‘happiness’ today…but you can trust me with tomorrow. I will still be on the throne.”

Permission to reprint with acknowledgement of source.