Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
31 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.
14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.
Day 1: Loving God
Reflections:
God has embedded this futility into the very cyclicity of life, “so that people fear before him.” The “fear of God” in the Bible is not the same as the terror you feel before a tyrant. Proverbs 15:33 says, “The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” If we know how big God really is, then we know how small we really are, if we know how holy God really is, then we know how sinful we really are, and that produces fear, awe, reverence, worship, and that’s the fear of God. To fear the LORD is to live every waking moment before the presence of, under the authority of, and for the glory of God. The futility of life is intended to teach us to fear God, to recognize that God is in control and we are not, that God is sovereign and we are not, that God is the Creator and we are creatures
Do you approach the time and seasons of your life with humility and the fear of the Lord? Or do you fancy yourself to be the master of your time, seeking to control time and leverage time in order to advance yourself? In what ways are you heaping up the gifts of the Present that God has given you, as mere fuel on the altar of the future? “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34)
Prayer Points:
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Name the plans and seasons that you have been seeking to master/control, and surrender them to God, recognizing that “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Prov. 16:9).
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Confess the things that you have been anxious about, pray over each of those things and entrust them to God, relinquishing control.
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Remember the gifts of the present that God has given you, to make you joyful, to “eat and drink and take pleasure in all [you] toil—this is God’s gift to man” (Ecc. 3:13). Thank God for these things.
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Pray that God would grow you to be a humble person who knows the freedom of insignificance and lives with the fear of the LORD.
Day 2: Loving One Another
Reflections:
Verse 4 says, there’s “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” To every single one of us, there are times that make us weep: a disheartening medical diagnosis, the heartbreak of wayward children, unemployment, periods of loneliness. But there are also times that make us laugh: the silly, pure laughter of children, the unintended slapstick comedy of clumsy friends, a funny line from a book or a movie, a thoughtful gift from a friend who knows you well, the love of family. Likewise, there are times when we mourn and times when we dance. In one season, we dance joyfully at a friend’s wedding reception, but in another season, we mourn the death of a friend at his funeral.
Verse 5 continues, “a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” I In Genesis 31:43-48, when Laban and Jacob are entering into a covenant with each other, Jacob instructs his kinsmen to “Gather stones,” and they use those stones to make a “heap” to be a “pillar” or a “heap” of “witness between [them].” So, likely, “gather[ing] stones together” refers to entering into a covenant relationship or an agreement with another, while “cast[ing] away stones” refers to the nullification or dissolution of such agreement. This interpretation matches the second half of the paired line perfectly. There is a time to embrace one another in relationship and a time to abstain from forming such relationship. There is a time when you start your degree program at a new university and make new friends at orientation, and there is a time when you graduate and bid your friends farewell. There is a time when we get to embrace new church members and gather stones together and enter into a church covenant together.
Prayer Points:
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Pray for church members who are in seasons of laughter/dancing as well as seasons of weeping/mourning. Pray for church members who have been recently married or will soon be married, that their celebrations would be full of thankful remembrance and praise, and that God would establish their marriages in Christ. Pray for Jenni Robinson’s upcoming heart surgery on September 23rd, that the surgery would be successful, and that God would strengthen Jenni with faith, hope, and love.
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Pray for church members who moved away this past month, including Ben Tan, and Charlie and Stephanie Yang (and their kids), for God to help them get integrated into a healthy, Spirit-filled, Word-based, gospel-centered church. Pray also for Todd and Brittany Born and their children as they move into Boston and join our church, for patience and perseverance through a major transition, and that our church would love and support them well.
Day 3: Loving Our Neighbors
Reflections:
Is there anything that will arrest the cyclicity of life? Is there anything that can interrupt our round and round world and fulfill our longing for eternity that God has put inside our hearts? Is there any way we can “find out what God has done from the beginning to the end”? Yes, there is! It says in Ephesians 1:10 that God “[made] known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” There is the cyclicity of the times and seasons of our lives, but then there is a fullness of time, in which God’s purposes for all of creation find their fulfillment. Romans 5:6 puts it this way, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” There is our time, and then there is “the right time,” God’s time, and that time is the coming of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead, for our salvation! That’s why Jesus announces in John 5:25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live!” “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life!” The hour, the fullness of time, the right time of Jesus Christ, is when eternity broke into our temporality, when the eternal God took on the flesh of temporal man, so that in His life, death, and resurrection, death itself might be undone, pushing the interminable cycle of life toward an end point, toward the climax of redemption, so that men and women whose hearts yearn for this eternity beyond their grasp might actually have eternal life! That’s the ultimate hope that Ecclesiastes points to!
Prayer Points:
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Pray that we would remember that life is short, and urgently share the gospel with our neighbors, who are like the grass that is here today and gone tomorrow.
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Pray that our neighbors would see that today is the time of God’s favor, today is the day of salvation through Jesus Christ, and trust in Him for eternal life.
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Let us also keep praying for Algeria, which is the nation we are praying for this month. Algeria is a nation of 47 million people. It is geographically the largest country in Africa, and in its history has seen the rule of many empires – Roman, Arab, and French to name a few. Algeria’s bloody independence from France and the intense political violence of the 1990s cost many lives and has left deep scars among Algerians to this day. The country is said to be 99% Muslim and have less than 0.08% Christians. However, God is at work saving many, growing the underground church, and bringing spiritual change to this nation.
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Pray for the peace and welfare of Algeria, that Algerians would turn to the only One that can bring true peace, justice, healing, and restoration.
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Pray that God would pour out his Spirit on Algeria and send laborers to this harvest field, raising up apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and shepherds to build up the fledgling church there.
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