Changing times

There is a time for every purpose

I have loved spending this week with our students teaching the book of Ecclesiastes.

It has been a fascinating week for me as I also found myself changing aspects of my role with Fusion.

What I love most about Ecclesiastes is the way Solomon (I know there is some debate about the author, however I won’t get into that now) clearly articulates the point of our lives.

After experimenting with a lot of different alternatives Solomon comes down to the point that our job is to know the time:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

So how do you know what time it is? Solomon gives a clue in verse 11:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Solomon is saying two things:

There is a right time for everything, and there is a beautiful part of you that is created in the image of God, the eternal part, that knows the time.

He also says you can’t “work God out” in your head, which he has spent much of the previous couple of chapters elaborating on.

Solomon goes on to say:

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. (Ecclesiastes 3:14)

Ecclesiastes reminds me of a quote from Bono, the lead singer from U2.

“A wise man once said to me: Stop asking God to bless what you are doing Bono, but look for what God is doing because that is already blessed”.

Ecclesiastes reminds me that I am not the centre of the universe, but I am afforded the opportunity to work with the one who is. My job is to learn to tell time, Gods time and not my time.

As I orientate to a change of role it is so helpful to remember that ultimately no role matters.

What matters is to be responding to the will of the God of the universe in this moment. Sometimes that means working, sometimes that means playing, sometimes sleeping and sometimes eating.

As I mentioned in a previous post, life doesn’t come with a policy and procedure manual (Forget policy and procedure), our job is to respond in faith to what God is doing in every moment, and the more I can let myself do that the more every moment becomes “beautiful”.