A Time for Everything and A Season for Every Purpose Under Heaven
“There is a time for
everything and a season for every purpose under heaven.”
Time. From time to time. For the time-being. Time-honored,
timeless, timely, time-sharing, time-worn. Time heals all wounds. Time wounds
all heels. Time is always a circus packing up and moving away. Living is
entirely too time-consuming. Time and tide wait for no man. Time immemorial.
Time expired. On time. In time. Time-out. Time, what a concept and how fascinated
by it and fixated on it we are!
We try to
make time, spend time, and cheat time but time marches on.
An online dictionary I consulted has a fifty-line
definition under the word “time.” But, in all those words offered in
explanation, there is no real definition of time for there is no attempt to
define time outside of time -- time as a created sphere within which God’s plan
of redemption is actualized. Time from an eternal perspective. Time from God’s
point of view. Does any human being really know what time is in
this sense? And as the song goes, does anybody really know what time it
is?
And yet, if you’ve come upon this entry at the start of a
new year, much of the world is upon the time when folks reflect upon the time –
the year – that is past and look forward to the time – the year – that is to
come. A new year of promise and challenge. What will we make of it?
How are you
now spending your time? It’s an enlightening exercise to consider what
percentage of your days are used up in sleeping, working, watching TV, eating,
traveling, lounging about, dressing, being ill, engaging in determinedly
spiritual pursuits . . . Each one of us probably has a unique way of looking at
time. For someone coping with a debilitating illness, each minute may pass like
an hour. And another, nearing the end of his life, may feel as though he has
too much time on his hands. He’s had enough of time. For another healthy, often
over-committed individual who’s always rarin’ to go, each hour may pass like a
minute – there never seems to be enough time.
Life comes to us in seasons, in spans, in stretches, in
seconds and in spells. Life comes to us in moments, months and millennia. We
may be at a juncture, in an interval and everything can change in an instant.
Isaac Watts reminds us in the great hymn, O God, Our Help in Ages Past, that:
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.” He also reminds
us that God has been our help in ages past and is our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.
To live
within real reality, to embrace the seasons of our lives, we need to understand
time. We must begin to see time from God’s perspective if only on our very
elementary level.
The author
of our passage from Ecclesiastes offers us, in the verses before us, a majestic
ode to time and he concludes with a way of dealing with and in time. He tells
us that every human activity has its own appointed time but that time also
creates a problem. If human beings were merely creatures within a limited span
of time, they would not concern themselves with the further dimensions of
eternity. But it is God who has placed “eternity in our hearts,” while keeping
us from the full knowledge of what will be in the future.
Made for
eternity but limited just now to time, that is our predicament and the
suggestions for dealing with this enigma are the focus of this entry.
In
Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1 through 15, we read:
There is a time for everything, and
a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to
die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,
a
time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a
time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to
gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to
search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time
to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to
love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers
gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 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. I
know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good
while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in
all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will
endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does
it so that people will fear him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be
has been before;
and God will call the past to account. (NIV)
In chapter 12, verses 13 and 14, the author concludes:
Now all has been heard;
here is the
conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the
duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including
every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil. (NIV)
So, again,
does anybody really know what time it is? Does any human being really have a
grasp on the nature of time?
It’s been
calculated that if you could put the entire history of humankind in a fifty-year
span, this is how it would read:
For the
first 45 years, nothing all that significant happened. Five years ago, humans
began to have some form of primitive writing and communication. Two years ago,
Christianity came into being. Five months ago, the printing press was invented.
Twenty days ago, Ben Franklin made the connection between lightning and
electricity. Nineteen days ago, the telephone was invented. Eighteen days ago,
the airplane appeared. Ten days ago, radio. Five days ago, television. Five minutes
ago: jet airplanes.
We hear
quite often that time seems to be speeding up. More than 40 years ago, Alvin
Toffler wrote a very influential book entitled Future Shock.
Toffler argued that society was
undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial
society to a super-industrial society. The accelerated rate of technological
and social advances was leaving people disconnected and suffering from
"shattering stress and disorientation”: they were “future shocked.” He
coined a new phrase for the problem: folks, he said, were on "information overload."
Today, you can pick up a magazine most any day and you’ll
find some article on time management, sleep disorders related to stress, or
products you can use to de-stress and relax. Five years ago, I typed into the
search line, “no time, stress” and came up with 8,900,000 items. I did that
again just now and came up with 142,000,000! Among those entries, I found everything
from books to consultants to relaxation sayings to an e-zine article entitled,
“How to Get Stress Relief by Constantly Pleasing Other People.”
It seems
we’re running, running, running but where to and what from? What are we doing
with our time?
The author
of Ecclesiastes, who may well have been King Solomon, son of David, writing
around 900 B.C., considered the same questions.
His book
starts with the words “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless!” What good is all the work, he wonders. There is
nothing new under the sun, no remembrance of men of old.
And this
guy had done everything, seen everything. He’d studied. He’d acquired. He’d
amassed. He’d taken on great projects, built houses, cultivated vineyards, planted
gardens, set out parks and constructed reservoirs. He’d denied himself nothing.
But, all of it, all of his activity had left him empty. He saw all of it as
meaningless, a chasing after the wind, because he knew he couldn’t take any of
it with him and he couldn’t make any more time.
In the 2011
release, In
Time, starring Justin Timberlake and
Amanda Seyfried, a future is envisioned wherein time is literally money, and
aging stops at 25. In this scenario, the only way to stay alive is to earn,
steal, or inherit more time. The plot plays on a craving many seem to share.
Art Historian Bernard Berenson, who lived 94 years -- from 1865 to 1959 --
once said, “I wish I could stand on a busy street corner, hat in hand, and beg
people to throw me all of their wasted hours.”
But even if
we could earn, steal, borrow or inherit more hours, it would make no
difference, the author of Ecclesiastes concludes, because our fates would still
be the same. The fate of the fool will overtake the wise as well. Like the
fool, the wise man too must die.
And so, he
despairs: what is the point of it all? Why bother?
Finally he
hits upon it: only those activities undertaken for the sake of God are truly
worthwhile. For “to the one who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and
happiness but to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up
wealth just to hand it over to the one who pleases God.” Thus writes Solomon.
If there is
no purpose, no meaning to existence beyond the limited span of an individual’s
years, he decides, all the effort is for naught.
But, when
one sees the hand of God at work in ordaining the times and seasons, when one
sees an everlastingness and a reason for and value in every season, everything
one does takes on a new dimension.
Each one is
born. Each one will die. In between, God has ordained that certain things will
happen according to His plan. There will be times of planting and harvest,
times of destruction and times of healing. There will be times of sorrow, times
of joy, times of searching, times of moving ahead, times of yielding. There
will be times for keeping and times for throwing away, times for silence, times
for speaking up. There will be love and hate, war and peace.
Why? Why go
through all of these things? So that we will learn to fear God, to obey Him, so
that we will learn through our labors to turn to the Lord, to seek Him, to seek
our purpose in serving Him. He has placed eternity in our hearts. Deep within,
we know there is more beyond the few years of existence we are given on this
plane. We can’t fathom what God has done from beginning to end. We don’t have
to fathom what He’s done. We need only to ensure that our eternity is safe,
that we have accepted His provision of salvation, and that – while we have time
-- we are living as we should, keeping in mind that some of the greatest
challenges we face are mercies meant to develop our characters.
If we begin
to look at our lives from an eternal perspective, we will be able to take
greater pleasure in all that comes to us – the times of trial as well as
the times of ease. We will be able to have peace in all circumstances because
we know the Lord means us well and uses all things to benefit those who love
Him. He is working in all time, outside of time and at all times. And He makes
all things beautiful in His time.
Consider,
for a moment, what endures and what does not endure for it is in the
everlasting that we should invest.
The Bible tells us that riches do not endure (Proverbs
27:24). Youth, though so many of us try so desperately to hold onto it, does
not endure.
In 1Corinthians 13, we’re told that what does endure is faith,
hope and love. John, chapter 6, assures us that spiritual food, which the Son
of Man – Jesus Christ – gives us, endures. What else endures? Truthful lips
(Pr. 12:19), God’s righteousness (Ps. 112:9 and 2Cor.9:9) and all of our labor
done for the sake of the Lord (1Cor. 15). Matthew, chapter 6, assures us that
treasures, laid up in heaven, endure. And where our treasure is, there will our
hearts be also. We too will endure.
We are here
– in time – for a reason. Richard Kroner once noted that “history has its beginning
in God, it has its center in Christ, and its end in the final consummation of
the last judgment.”
God has
established time. In that time, we are to live and work and play, to seek some
answers, to come to some conclusions. We are born by the grace of God. We are
redeemed – our time is redeemed, our eternity is redeemed – by accepting the
gift of the new life in Christ. We are then to use our time – leading up to the
end times – seeking to please our God. We learn of His will for our lives through
scripture, through prayer, through pursuing truth in fellowship with other
believers, through service to others, through committing our work – all that we
do - to our Lord and Savior, living lives that are pleasing in His sight.
Whatever we’re doing, whatever work He has given us to do, we do it all as unto
the Lord.
Time is
“the arena of humanity’s decision on our way to eternal destiny.” We make
choices within the arena of time – every thought, word and deed has
repercussions in the eternal moral order.
God has
ordained a time and a season for everything. He has set eternity in our hearts
so that we will seek Him, use the time well and know peace and satisfaction – a
taste of eternity in established time.
When your
life comes to an end, what stories will it tell? Will your life reflect
God-honoring priorities? Do you need to make adjustments in the way you use your
time?
When your life
comes to an end, will you have to say, “When I surveyed all that my hands had
done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing
after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2: 11a)? Or will you be able to say, “I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now
there is in store for me the crown of righteousness” (2Timothy 4-7a)?
In the days
ahead, I pray you will devote yourself to those pursuits that honor God and
minister to your fellow human beings. May the Lord teach you to number your
days aright (Psalm 90:12) and remind you that each day is “the day the Lord has
made” (Psalm 118:24a). Our times are in His hands (Psalm 31:15) and we can
“trust in Him at all times . . . for God is our refuge” (Psalm 62:8). God is
the God of our days and God is the God of all time whether we are in time or
out of time. Remember God is the God of eternity and He has placed that
eternity in the hearts of His people.
PRAYER
Great and
Eternal God, Your love for us never ends. You remain constant and faithful
through all the seasons of our lives – from birth to death, in times of weeping
and in times of laughter, in times of mourning and in times of joy, in times of
war and in times of peace, in the silence and in the clatter and clutter of
busy lives. Lord, you have set eternity in my heart and so I commit my
ways to You and pray that Your Holy Spirit will indeed guide me into all truth.
May You sanctify me and preserve me.
Lord, as I look toward the days ahead, I pray that you will
grant me strength during times of trial and wisdom at all times. Lord, as the
cliché goes, today is the first day of the rest of my life so I turn afresh
to seeking You, Your wisdom, Your will, Your strength. May I give serious
consideration to the ways in which I use the time that you have given to me.
Fill me with awe because of the challenges I face but fill me also with
confidence because of the power that is mine because I belong to You. May the
days ahead find me engaged in those pursuits that honor You and further Your
kingdom. Grow me Lord in miraculous ways that I may love You and serve You all my
days through Jesus Christ my Lord, I pray. Amen
