There’s a Time for This

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted… a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4

In 1965, the Byrds popularized the song, Turn, Turn, Turn, a folk-rock tune that was written in 1959 by singer & activist Pete Seeger. The lyrics are taken from Ecclesiastes 3. When Seeger was interviewed in 1988 about the back story of the song, he had this to say–“I don’t read the Bible that often. I leaf through it occasionally, and I’m amazed by the foolishness at times and the wisdom at other times. I call it the greatest book of folklore ever written. Not that there isn’t a lot of wisdom in it.”

Actually, Mr. Seeger–the Bible is full of wisdom, and it is the very words of God. How accurate Ecclesiastes 3 is! Life is full of birth and death, of planting and harvesting, of weeping and laughing, of mourning and dancing, of seeking and losing, of war and peace, of silence and speaking. Anyone who is paying attention to the world can see the truth in those words.

What matters is what we believe about why all of these things happen. Many of them, we would never choose. And yet, God allows them all. Why does He do that? Well, Solomon goes on to say that God “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God uses even the difficult things in life to make us more like Jesus (Romans 8:28). And that is a beautiful thing.

-Pastor Mike