There are two passages assigned for today!

SCRIPTURE: Ecclesiastes 3
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. [Ecclesiastes 1:1]
God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. [Ecclesiastes 1:11]
Do you remember Jim Croce’s ‘(If I Could Save) Time In A Bottle’? or the Alan Parson’s Project, ‘Time (Keeps Flowing Like A River)’.
It seems that God has placed “time” (eternity) in the human heart, an awareness and longing for more than our finite limitations.
The Teacher reflects on time, and observes that within the flow of time, there are many seasons – the good, the bad, the enjoyable, the hard.
By reflecting on these different seasons or times, the Teacher is challenging us to get some perspective, to see our lives in the context of time and eternity.
This season is not forever, something else is coming; and these seasons are not all there is, there is something bigger, something more, something eternal.

Then the leaders tried to arrest him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come. [John 7:30]
As the Teacher reflects on injustice in the courts, Jesus is also in a season of injustice, the religious leaders are trying to arrest Him.
But notice how we also see a glimpse of the bigger picture, that the leaders are not able to overrule God’s timing.
His time had not yet come!
This is encouraging; not only does God lead us through a variety of seasons He also directs them for His purpose.
No, we will not escape the hard seasons, but they are not the end, they are a part of God’s unfolding plan leading to eternity.
At this point in time, we are not able to discern why God allows us to go through tough seasons; we cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
But our time is in His hands, our beginning, our ending, and our eternity.
The best thing we can do is surrender ourselves into God’s hands, whatever season we may be in.

The reality is, we are absolutely immortal in this life as long as God’s purpose for us remains.
Through all the changing and challenging times and seasons, nothing can stop us or defeat us while our time has not yet come.
The Teacher cannot say for sure what happens after we die, whether our ending is different from animals.
But he places his confidence in God, and chooses to live each day for itself, to accept what comes – both the good and the bad – and to see it all as a gift from God, the outworking of His eternal purpose?

What season are you in?
Are you able to surrender your time into His hands?

PRAYER:
Lord, I sense that You are unfolding Your purpose in my life, and that all of my seasons (including this hard one right now) somehow fit together into Your eternal plan for my life.