Ecclesiastes 3:1


There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

The chapter continues with an explanation of the different seasons of life we will encounter: birth, death, planting and uprooting; a time to kill and time to heal, to tear down and then build. We will encounter tears and laughter, mourning and dancing and we will spend time both scattering and then gathering. The writer concludes this section with affirming there is a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. He covers it all, every experience we will encounter as we go through life. How we face these experiences is another matter. We can be full of dread and fear which cause our lives to become stagnant, or full of apathy which says, “Oh well, it will be what it will.” Many people choose those attitudes of defeat and so live a deflated existence. How we spend our time in these various purposes, to find them meaningful, is best spent with God’s providence and God’s opportunities in mind. We so easily waste precious time on those things God never intended in His purpose for us to use as something of influence in our life. So, the influence is lost. The time is wasted. The opportunity vanished. We may not have control over the seasons of life which come upon us, but we do have control over how we will face them. Faith in God and the fear of God grant to us His wisdom. All the blessings we receive are bound in these two factors – faith and fear (or awe). If we have respect for time, every matter has an appropriate and suitable one in and through God.

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