September 28, 2020
“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.
…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.”
– See Ecclesiastes 3
Time is a funny thing. We can’t understand life apart from it. It seems to move terribly slowly when we are young. Then, there never seems to be enough of it. Finally, we ponder what it means to know that our time might be almost up.
We can neither slow down time nor speed it up. The sun will rise and it will set. Summer will go and autumn will arrive. We have no control over some things. But each season holds something; there is a time for everything.
…So what season are you in? [Pause.]
* * *
Most of the time it seems we want anything but the season that we are actually in. Some discomfort in our life makes us yearn for change. Our temptation might very well be to “hunker down and get through this thing” as fast as we can, only to realize later that the next season also has it challenges. As the old saying goes, “the grass is always greener over the septic tank.”
So what are you waiting for? Waiting for covid to be over? For school to change? For a relationship to have more clarity? Waiting for a break? Simply wanting to know that things will be ok?
This is what I sense today: God’s Pacing. God is setting the pace of our lives. There is a season for everything. He is working, and He is not working on our timetable. It will come to fruition in its proper time for God is doing something important. We have no choice over which season we are in; we simply choose whether or not we embrace it.
God is bringing us closer to Him today. The call is to lift up our hearts to Him and ask for Him to search them. Heart growth takes time. This is the season. If we simply try to put our heads down and trudge through this season without learning what it holds, we may very well come to the place where we find that the grass that we are standing in is indeed green – but that our shoes are wet.
* * *
Father, help us to embrace the season that we are in.
For this season holds something for each of us. Everything has its own time.
…What do You want to lay on my heart now?
