Everything

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV)

“I haven’t got time for this.”

That’s a reflex line when some inconvenience manages to stick its foot into the door of my plans. I use it for choice moments - when the sound of flapping rubber accompanies the violent shimmy in my car while I’m on the highway; when I wake up with that feeling in my throat that tells me I’m well on my way to a full blown head cold; when my best intentions to be careful with my cup of morning-drive coffee don’t hold up against sudden braking and the subsequent sloshing on my tie. These annoyances, minor though they are, usually get the line: “I don’t have time for this.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 is one of the most familiar and beautiful lines of poetry in the Old Testament. The rhythm of the language and the profundity of thought endear it to us. But it is a disturbing verse of scripture. In our coziness with the words, the offense of what it says is lost on us. The uneasiness can be attributed to one word: Everything. For everything there is a season. “Everything” encompasses some aspects of life that I typically regard as a mistake or an aberration from God’s plan and purposes.

I can accept that God wills my joy and laughter, my efforts to build up and to plant, my embracing others and making peace - but are my grieving and weeping, my casting away and losses also included in God’s economy? The scripture answers “yes.” There is a season for everything. And everything includes all of those things of which I would readily say, “I don’t have time for this.”

But God has time for them. What’s more, God has reasons for them. This is a hard truth, but one which brings us good news if we’ll hear it. It means that nothing in your life is wasted. Nothing. The realities you woke up to this morning may be a source of joy for you; they may be a source of anguish. Whatever they are, whatever they feel like – they aren’t wasted. To say there is a season for everything means that God ignores nothing.

Prayer: I thank you God that nothing in my life is wasted – even the circumstances that seem like a total waste to me. Teach me to trust you in every season of life. Amen