Episode Details

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:1-8.

Meditation

“Time flies,” we often say, don’t we? And probably it would be a cliché, if it weren’t such a constant and powerful reality. Time really does fly by. As children, we don’t tend to notice it. I distinctly remember waiting for my parents to stop talking after church on Sunday; five minutes felt like an eternity. In our twenties, we feel invincible, and existence still seems timeless. And yet, as life goes on, we realise the truth as the decades continue to roll by at a startling rate. The older among us are acutely aware: time flies.

In Psalm 90, Moses says, “like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.” That is what our lives are like.

Things are continually changing. An older sibling moves out of home and gets married. New babies arrive. A career changes. We move house. Elderly relatives die. The seasons of life are constantly moving, and everything continually changes.

And so, in the midst of this changing life, it is important to ask ourselves: How can we use our time well? This is why, again in Psalm 90, Moses prays: teach us to number our days. We must use what little time we have wisely, redeeming the time. In our passage, Solomon very helpfully instructs us on how to do that. This book is all about the “hevel” of life, the shortness and transient nature of existence. Solomon wants to teach us how to be aware of time so that we can use it well.

Picking up in verse 1, Solomon says: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Let’s pause here for a moment. Solomon is not just waxing lyrical about the nature of life. Yes, we have different times and seasons, but what he is saying is far more profound. He is saying that there is an order to time. One translation puts it this way: for everything there is an appointed time.

And if time has been ordered, then someone has ordered it. We should not misunderstand Solomon here, because the overarching truth he is pointing out is that God is behind the seasons of time. God appoints times and seasons. We do not live in a random universe. Everything has a God-appointed time; for everything, there is a season. Solomon even says this explicitly in verse 11: “God has made everything beautiful in its time.” Note: God has made. As Ephesians 1:11 puts it, God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

Let us not beat around the bush: Solomon is saying that God is the sovereign ruler over all history. He ordains time and all its seasons. One of our hymns calls him the “Potentate of Time.”

In God’s good order, there are different seasons in life. There are appointed times for different purposes. One does not live as a child when they are 40 years old. One does not begin university studies at the age of 10, unless one happens to be a child prodigy.

There are three life-applications that flow out of this meditation.

Firstly, we must accept the seasonal nature of life. We must accept and embrace the natural changes of life. You can try to resist the change of time, and many people do, but it is as futile as trying to reverse a tidal wave with your bare hands. God has ordered it. This might seem like basic advice, and yet many people rebel against God’s ordained seasons. Our culture is often in outright rebellion against them. Everyone wants to be in their twenties. Teenagers look forward to the freedom of their twenties. People in their thirties pretend they are still in their twenties. People in their forties and fifties do everything possible to hold on to their youth. And even those actually in their twenties are often dissatisfied; all the travelling and partying in the world cannot bring true satisfaction.

Even in our final years, rather than contentm