It is my favorite time of year! I love all the seasons, but this is by far the most beautiful in Ohio. The leaves are changing from green to a fall mixture of beauty. Ultimately, as beautiful as it is though, the fact is the leaves are dying. They gracefully fall one-by-one in their time to the ground, where they will go back into the earth. We are a lot like leaves, each going through our own seasons of life and changing as each season shapes us, but we have this clock called life, slowly ticking by simultaneously.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 phrases the essence of time perfectly. It reads:
“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven:
a time to give birth 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 throw stones and a time to gather stones;
a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing;
a time to search and a time to count as lost;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
a time to tear and a time to sew;
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.
[The author then asks] What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”
Friends, when we really sit back and reflect on these lines, we can see that time is a theme. It’s mentioned 30 times in just 11 verses. Sometimes we live as if time is not important. We waste it scrolling the Internet and investing in superficial and/or material things. However, aside from Christ’s death and resurrection, time is one of our most valuable gifts. We really need to make it our life’s work to invest it wisely and to protect it. Life is fragile and tomorrow isn’t promised, so let’s choose to spend time with God today, to sit in His presence. Let’s invest time into our people and to sit with them, loving them well. Let’s choose to invest in Heavenly things, and let’s let the seasons of life shape and form us into a beautiful wonder that changes gracefully over time, just as the leaves.
Have a great week, friends!
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