The God of seasons

This morning I am not going to speak on our Christmas readings but instead my focus is on the OT reading that is suggested for New Year’s Day. Ecc 3:1-14. We all know this passage well, there has even been a song written using its very words!

I will share these words with you now.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:  ² a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;  ³ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;  ⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;  ⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;  ⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;  ⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;  ⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.  ⁹ What gain has the worker from his toil?  ¹⁰ I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  ¹² I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;  ¹³ also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil- this is God's gift to man.

The book of Ecclesiastes is a marvelous piece of literature written by someone called the preacher, a son of David, possibly King Solomon. I often find myself in times of unguided meditation turning to the book of Eccl. I flick through the pages to pick up a verse here or there. I seek God’s wisdom as I hear his word. God’s word is always relative to us but Eccl speaks deeply into our culture and the pursuit for happiness. How we understand life and how we live the life given to us. God’s timing is perfect and this is shown in the gift of his son Jesus Christ who enters into our time to give us eternity.

I encourage you all to the take the time to read through the whole book in one sitting. Then go back on ponder on the thoughts and questions posed. I find more and more than the book is more relevant in my life as get older and as my life and priorities change.

God’s perfect timing

I was watching some of the cricket this week, there is one phrase that is often used, beautifully timed, perfect timing, he picked the slower ball timed it to perfection through the covers for 4. In sport timing is vital to hit the ball sweetly, to fulfill a set play, to serve that ace, to shoot a 3 pointer or to hit a home run.

But timing isn’t limited to the sports field.

In times gone by in the ancient world people would often ask the wise person of their village, the priest or the prophet, for advice for the best timing; when to get married, when to build a house, when to plant crops, when to bury the dead, when to go to war. Timing was important in finding favour with the gods.

In an organization you will often hear the word “timing” used. We need to find the right time to make this development in our company. We need the right timing for this decision work. The saying/phrase often used is, “successful action is in the right timing”.

Today people still look to the stars for timing – some people won’t begin their day until they have read their star sign report. They will only do certain things according to the stars. If only they could put their trust in the one who made the stars.

Even as Christians we may pray God tell me what I should do. Maybe the better prayer would be, God reveal to me your will in my life and give me the faith to follow you.

We all desire to live ordered lives and we want to have perfect timing in all we do. I remember when Jenni and I were talking about having kids in our pre-marriage education. We were told there is never the right time to have kids.

I think that is with any life decision. You can have the best life plan, the best financial plan and it will always be changing depending on circumstances. As much as we try to control our lives and put the best plans in place there will be something that sideswipes us. This is much of the emotion of the letter of Eccl.

Now I only read a small section of Ecclesiastes, the most well-known part of the book. The poem begins with the direct verse “a time to be born and a time to die”. Being the first line in the poem it shapes the rest of it.

The preacher after sharing all thoughts, concerns, worries and objections in the first 2 chapters, his despairs over life, questioning the purpose of life, stating the vanity of life, wisdom, self-indulgence, of toil and living wisely. He comes to understand life as being born and dying, human lives are as fleeting as the agricultural season. In the end we have no control over when we are born or when we die.

There was a slogan used by a sporting company: Life is short. Play hard. Reebok. This not far from what the preacher is saying in Eccl but we think play hard means live life in the fast lane, make as much money as possible, outdo the others, but the preacher would say, living hard – living with purpose is to be joyful and do good as long as you live, eat and drink and take pleasure in your toil – this is God’s gift to humanity.

In the midst of the life we have been given we will face different seasons, times of good and bad. Times where we experience change, times we will see pain and devastation, times of healing, times of sadness times of laughter, times of love and times of hate, times of usefulness times of uselessness. But under every season we experience we live under the care of God.

We can try in vain to find the right timing in life. The right time to change jobs, the right time to buy a house, choosing the right subjects to study at school, the right university course to go into, but there is never the right time for any decision.

Does this mean we live in ignorance to God because his purpose will be served without our doing?

No! We live to worship the giver of real life who has all things under his rule to fulfill his purpose and will for our lives and his universe. The right timing is God’s timing. So we should find enjoyment in our work, we should eat and drink and give thanks to God – or as Jesus teaches, “don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have enough worries of its own.”

What does the preacher (and Jesus) mean by this? He isn’t talking about seeking pleasure through materialism. He is talking about receiving God’s gifts and using them cheerfully knowing that they will never bring absolute happiness. When we live with eternity in mind we can enjoy this life for the gift that it is. This earthly life is a foretaste to the eternal blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus.

God’s timing as seasons

In our house we have a number of clocks, but there is one that we would always look too, it sits in our dining area, one day it was running a bit late, the batteries were dying and it was losing time, it was about 10 minutes behind. Now Jenni’s sister was staying with us and needed to catch a bus into the city, she was using this clock, needless to say, she the missed the bus that morning.

We are a society that is transfixed on time. We like to have the right timing in our decisions. Every minute is important. It seems like we don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions. People wanted consistent intervals of time shorter than the day or lunar cycle. By the 17^th century we had clocks that we were pretty good at keeping time with a minute and second hand. Time is important for lives – it orders our lives. We need to know when the bus or train is coming, what time men’s or women’s breakfast starts. It is an integral part of our lives.

Yet God’s time is different from human time. God looks at life in seasons. We understand time as a specific measure. We even have the technology to measure time beyond 1/1000 of a second. We use this in sports to get the most accurate time reading. Humans invented the yearly calendar to keep track of the days and months, to measure the cycles of the earth.

Instead of looking at life in hours and minutes, in days and years, God asks us to look at our lives in seasons. Of course we will make daily appointments our lives will be managed by the clock and calendar. But as a whole person we move through seasons in life, times of mourning and times of dancing, times of weeping and times of laughing, times of breaking down and times of building up, times of keeping and casting away. What season of life are you in at the moment? How is God leading you through this time?

In our church here at St Paul’s I believe we are going through a season of rebirthing, of rediscovering who we are as God’s people in this city. We are in a God given season of rest for the next season which we all pray will be one of self-discovery and growth. But what we often do is think that the season of rest is wrong, the season of learning and gaining in wisdom, the season of listening is improper. Yet the preacher tells us to appreciate all seasons as God’s way of preparing us for the next.

God is always moving and shaping his church to be his people in a certain place in time – the season we are in as a church in Sydney in 2012 is very different to what is was in 1960, 1980 even 10 years ago. But we still have the same immovable, unstoppable God leading us, whose Word is eternal.

This gives us hope for the future. We can get stuck in a certain mold of thinking saying this is the only way God can work. But remember God moves in seasons, he doesn’t say this year this will happen or in 3 years this will happen, no he still gives his people to room to move to honour the season he brings them into. God wants to move his people into new and exciting seasons.

The thing with seasons is they usually slowly merge into each other or we expect summer but get rain and cold weather. But it the season that has been given to us and we adapt accordingly. I have found in my relative short life that in the midst of a hardship or suffering we are transformed into a different person without realising it until we look back at who we were. We handle the seasons with faith knowing that God is leading us through especially in the ones we least expect, the ones that sideswipe us.

We all face frustrations in life, we enjoy good times and face bad times. But overall God’s word is eternal amid the fading life we live. We are born and we die. This is the reality we all face. But in the life we have been given we live with joy in all the seasons of life in the promises of God. God’s perfect timing is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, he said to us, “time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand”. God himself in Jesus Christ comes into our world at the perfect time – God’s timing breaks into our human timing.

The questions of the preacher in the book of Eccl are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. What is the meaning of all our toiling under the sun, all of our planning, all our ambitions when we all come to the same end? Is it meaningless? Vanity? No! within our time something happens that is not of our time but it is out of eternity and this eternal time is now our time! The same power which limits us gives us eternal significance to all our timing.

So as we come to the start of a new year may you understand the timing of God and know of his purpose for your life. May you seek him in all you decisions and look to him as the source of your blessings and give thanks always. May you know that in whatever season you face you are under his care.