23 September 2022
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
From Ecclesiastes 3: 1-11, NRSV
It has been said that when God created time, he made plenty of it! This idea is taken as read by the writer of this well-known and often quoted passage of Scripture which begins with the words “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”. The poem which follows lists the many contrasting events of life – both good and bad – which will inevitably happen and which we cannot control. We might well ask why bad or troubling things need to happen at all. But this would be to try and second guess God’s plan for us and prevent us seeing how God accompanies us through all the events of our lives. At the end of the poem, the writer says that God has put a sense of both the past and the future into our minds. For those who believe, our sense of time is not just about the time we have to live on this earth but also about our life in eternity. To understand this passage, it might be helpful to recall the response to the old catechism question ” Why did God make you?” which, as many will recall is “to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next.”
- Why do you think God has given us a sense of eternity?
- How does our awareness of eternity affect the way we cope with the changing events of our lives – happy or sad?
Is there a circumstance in your life that you are struggling to understand or deal with? Pray for the grace to put this situation into God’s hands, trusting that God will show you if and when there is something you need to do about it.
