Seasons

 

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

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that the seasons of our earthly life lie between “a time to be born” and “a time to die.” Yet, we know from the same chapter that “God has set eternity in our hearts” and that we have a hard time understanding what God does from beginning to end.

Anyone living through this 21st century COVID-19 Pandemic can agree with this lack of understanding. One day, we seem to have a handle on the virus and we learn to live with it. The next day, we hear that the virus has sprung up in a place unknown to us, setting us back in our plans.

When we look over the seasons of our earthly lives, we see seasons that contained wonderful joy and fulfillment only to dissolve into tragedy and loss in nearly the next moment of time. We prefer the times of planting and laughing, of dancing and loving, but God uses all the seasons to accomplish His work in us and in the world.

Perhaps you can think of childhood times, so long and wonderful, or of the early days of your marriage when you shared day-after-day of happiness and delight. It was easy to praise God then and easy to see His tender love and care.

Yet, from experience in the winter seasons of life, we have come to recognize the loving work of God through hardship and confusion, as well. And, we have learned to trust Him that all things will work together in His holy timing, even this horrible Pandemic.

The hardest part comes when we learn that we haven’t been invited into the planning and that we have no say in the broad picture. Just before Jesus went into heaven, Scripture records in Acts 1:7 that He said:

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

Jesus said He would come back to get His church. But, we obviously would not share in the timing of that event. We see, all too well, that “He is God and we are not!”

So, what should we do in every situation of trial and trouble? In that same passage from the Book of Acts that I mentioned above, Jesus told the disciples that they would be His witnesses all over the world with the power He would give from His Holy Spirit. In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul wrote to Timothy that, in season and out of season—when it was convenient and when it was not—Timothy was to:

“…preach the Word; be prepared to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.”

In this time of great uncertainty, God expects us to trust Him, to know that our times are in His hands. We are to continue His work of spreading the Gospel and blessing others. We can pray with David from Psalm 31:14-19 when he faced the uncertainty of living in the presence of enemies:

I trust in you, O Lord: I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies… How great is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.

Then we can conclude our prayer by hearing David’s words from Psalm 31:23-24:

Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.