Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
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.
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. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 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.
Life. A space of time. But yet a beautiful continuum. Stephanie, my farmer photographer daughter, who sees beauty in many things, took the picture above. I love her perspective. This is life on the farm. What looks like a dead crop of soybeans is actually part of the life cycle of God’s creation. This is the time for harvest and yet there is a sunrise bathing those beans in its life giving caress. Imagine the darkness predawn and the light slowly rising over its horizon, touching everything in its path. God did indeed create a beautiful circle of life. Read again from Ecclesiastes all that there is a season for in this world paying close attention to verse 11. Some of it is truly a tough journey to get through. We may wonder, as the beloved humans in His creation, where God is at times.
Ecclesiastes tells us God is in all of it!
God tells us, “I will be with you.”
That is something worth hanging on to.
~Shauna Weil
A devotion provided on behalf of the GUMC devotion ministry.