MARCH 4, 2015
A Season For Everything
To
everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1
Read:
Ecclesiastes
3:1-13
If you’re like me,
you’ve struggled with having to say no to taking on a new
responsibility—especially if it’s for a good cause and directly related to
helping others. We may have sound reasons for carefully selecting our
priorities. Yet sometimes, by not agreeing to do more, we may feel guilty or we
may think that somehow we have failed in our walk of faith.
But according to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, wisdom recognizes that
everything in life has its own season—in human activities as in the realm of
nature. “There is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (3:1).
Perhaps you are getting married or becoming a parent for the
first time. Maybe you are leaving school and entering the workforce, or moving
from fulltime work to retirement. As we move from season to season, our
priorities change. We may need to put aside what we did in the past and funnel
our energy into something else.
When life brings changes in our circumstances and obligations,
we must responsibly and wisely discern what kind of commitments we should make,
seeking in whatever we do to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Proverbs 3:6 promises that as we acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will guide
us in the way we should go.
Heavenly Father, give me Your wisdom to know what priorities I
need to have at this season of my life. Guide me in all that I do. I only want
to bring You the honor You deserve with the way I live.
Commitment to Christ is a daily calling that
challenges us.
INSIGHT: The book of Ecclesiastes shows what life is
like without God (1:1-2) and reminds us to include Him in our lives (12:1). In
today’s passage, Solomon affirms God’s sovereignty over all human life (3:11).
He observes that we are time-bound, experiencing between birth and death a
complexity of events (vv. 2-8). God is in control of our lives, making
“everything beautiful in its time” (v. 11).
Source: Our Daily Bread 2012
