I feel like sometimes I’m in a race. Today I had to drop my youngest at my parents house so that I could go to a doctor appointment. I also had to drop my oldest off at her work and pick up my middle one. Ready, Set, Go. Off I went to my parents to drop off my son then 5 minutes later back in the car to get my daughter to work by 2:30 then I had a half hour to make the doctors appointment. Appointment over, off again to pick up my son and middle daughter. Boy was I tired when I got home. I made it, by God’s grace, everywhere I was meant to go but not without stress and prayers, especially when we got stuck behind the tractor!
I learned a while back that I am not in control of time. God is. I hate being late and having kids makes you late sometimes. I would get so upset when we would arrive somewhere late. Until I realized it didn’t do any good. No matter how upset I was time still ticked on. So now I pray for God’s timing and peoples mercy.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is a very familiar passage for most of us. But it speaks about God’s timing. It mentions 28 seasons of life that will happen to all of us and that they happen in God’s timing.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
We are all right now somewhere in these 8 verses. Sometimes your in more than one time at once. These verses make it very clear that God is soverign over the season you are in. It may be a good season or a bad season. It may be an uncomfortable season full of change. Which is another point these verses make that change is inevitable and absolute. Change can be a hard thing to process and can create anxiety and depression for an individual. But you can’t avoid it. Change will and does happen. Courtney Joseph says in her Bible Study Ecclesiastes Wisdom for Living Well, that “God uses change to shape us and to open our eyes to His presence. We are not alone. We need to embrace change.”
Matthew 6:27 is one of my life verses. Jesus says “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life span?”ESV
Anxiety, Worry, Depression does not change the outcome of our life. It can’t change the day. God has already determined that. Psalm 139″13-16 says that God made us fearfully and wonderfully and that “in Your book were all written The days that were appointed for me. When as yet there was not one of them (even taking shape) “-verse 16.
So if God has already determined our days we have no need for anxiety and worry. We can trust in God to care for us. In thinking about the seasons of Ecclesiastes I also think about the hard seasons we can be in and how those seasons of grief, loss, death, and weeping how heavy those seasons seem. I wanted to remind you that God calls us His sheep, not His pack mules. God puts us all through the same seasons, so that we will lean on Him and lean on each other. You are not meant to carry things alone. He’s got big strong shoulders and wants to carry the hard things with and for you. We are called to care for eachother and in that we are told to carry each other’s burdens.
Galatians 6:2 “Carry one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the requirements of the law of Christ ( that is, the law of Christian love.)
If you want to read more about change you can go to my blog post The Aftermath of Change in your Life from a few weeks ago. My life is definitely in a season of change. I no longer want to run the race against time but instead trust in God’s timing. If you are in a hard or heavy season and would like prayer please comment before. I would love to pray for you.
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