Tag Archives: Ecclesiastes 3

Seasons…

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Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. then you will win favour and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.

(Prov 3.3-7)

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 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, 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.

(Ecc 3.1-8)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another.. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone… do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(Rom 12.12-18&21)

Life is feeling more than a little frantic just at the moment… and I am aware that I don’t really have  a strategy for untangling and prioritising all the various demands on my time – not to mention the competing desires of my heart! Perhaps you can identify with this sense of continually being distracted by another thing on the to-do list, or the sense of so much that remains merely a dream instead of becoming reality?

With the blessings of health, strength and prosperity comes responsibility and the need for wisdom in using those gifts, together with the gift of each new day and its opportunities. How on earth am I to know what the pattern of my life should be? And is there an ideal pattern which I have to discern? – perhaps ‘should’ is the wrong word! It is very easy to fall into the trap of worrying instead of praying and asking for wisdom – which as the writer James points out, is given to all who ask for it by God. This wisdom is what I need in this season of life; wisdom to discern where God is calling me to be present, and to whom I should be giving my time and attention; wisdom to use the gifts and skills I possess, and to know where my lack of qualification is not a drawback and that God is asking me to offer my inadequacies for him to transform! 

In the same way as the seasons of nature follow one another in a cycle of life, death and re-birth, so also our lives are seasonal, and in each one we may have different tasks and places in which to serve. Wisdom helps me to recognise those seasons, and to navigate them with faith and in peace. Wisdom can also help me to accept that I am not failing when I lay aside certain activities, or let a relationship slip into a less intense phase – my loving Father knows my limitations, and will grant me peace as I entrust all that I cannot do to his provident undertaking.

Our Lord Jesus always seemed to have time to be interrupted; and yet he was fully focussed on his calling and fulfilled all that God had purposed for him to do. I covet that wisdom and discernment for myself, as my limitations require me to make choices, to let go and to leave undone. 

Heavenly Father, thank you that you know my limitations, that I can’t be in two places at once, or fit more than 24 hours into a day. I believe that you have things for me to do in this season of life, and I therefore ask your wisdom to recognise what I must prioritise, and what I must surrender. Let me trust you for the people and things left aside in this season, as I seek to serve those to whom I am called – to mourn with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice; to gather or to scatter; to be silent or to speak. Let me live fully present with you in this season, for your glory and the blessing of your people, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

Made for beauty, made for belonging..

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God saw all that he had made, and it was very good, and there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.

(Gen 1. 31)

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

(Ps 19.1-4)

I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips… I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears… Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

(Ps 34.1,4&8)

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights above. Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for at his command they were created, and he established them for ever and ever – he issued a decree that will never pass away.

(Ps 148.1-7)

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.

(Ecc 3.11, Amplified Bible)

For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

(Heb 13.14)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…..”Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them..

(Rev 21.1&3)

Home… what does that word mean to you? I expect that a great deal depends on your experience of life in terms of family, settled living, security and health. I have been thankful to live under law and order; to know health and a nurturing family and community; to have reason to hope for security in worldly means. I have good reason to respond strongly and positively to the word ‘home’. 

The place where we have lived for these last 7 years has become home to me – a community where I am loved and useful; a place of such astonishing beauty that my spirit is continually overwhelmed; a settled and powerful sense of belonging and identity. I am deeply thankful for these good gifts…. and therefore deeply grieved at the prospect of leaving them behind.

As I wrestle with this prospect of loss, I resist self-pity, which achieves nothing except to divert me from thankful dependence on God and bind me in bitterness and resentment. I choose thankfulness, I choose praise, I choose to delight up to the last moment in this place. I choose to face each day with eyes wide open, a heart eager to receive and respond to the love-gifts of my Father.

When I am gone, the beauty will remain – undiminished by my departure, and awaiting my return. I may never again call it home, identifying myself with this beloved place, but it has played a huge part in my life and I will give thanks and be glad for that. The Lord has given me such joy here – and surely his power to do so will be unaltered by his removal of me to another place of his choosing?!

Golden barley ripened fields; dark green forest-bristling hills; purple heather-hued slopes; brilliant velvet-cropped fields; statuesque trees amid emerald pastures; blue skies with mountainous backlit clouds, silver grey and pearl; burns tumbling brown and foamy down rocky slopes; lochs like sheet mirrors; broad streams like silver ribbons..

All these words are a feeble attempt to capture the beauty, but my response in exultant worship is beyond description. This land is my home, my place and though I leave it for a season, I believe that one day, in the new creation, I will see it again – transformed. No longer a shadowy image of true beauty as it exists in the Creator’s mind, but the real thing – the lasting, eternal thing, where I will truly be at home for ever and all that is beloved here and now will be more real, more beautiful, more wonderful than I can imagine.

 Thank you Father, that you made me able to respond to beauty, and also to long to be at home. Thank you, that one day I will live with you in the beauty of which this world is merely a suggestion. Thank you that one day, I will know that for which my heart longs – I am made for belonging, made for beauty, made to live with you in perfect love in the place you designed for me to thrive and to delight. Keep me faithful until I see it, keep me obedient, trusting and loving. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

(the author acknowledges her debt to CS Lewis for much of the imagery and thinking of this piece)