A Time for Everything

This past weekend St Louis got hammered by a very huge snowstorm and extremely cold temps.  Knowing this was coming in on Sunday, my wife and I attended church services on Saturday night.  Our minister was suppose to kick off a new series for the new year.  However with the prediction of bad weather the staff decided to put together a preview of the new series and in just a day developed a service with all new music, new sermon and the passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13. 

I have been attending the Crossing Church in Chesterfield for the past 3 years and I have come to learn that nothing happens by chance at this church.  God works his way in everything that happens at the church.  

I feel that the Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 passage goes directly to my word for the year - Content.  

As I read this passage and reflect on the words of the writer, I take away that there is a time for everything and my goal for this year is to be content with whatever season I am on any given day.  Some will be good days, some will be tough.  Some with be good and some will bad.  Some days things will go my way and other days I will need to compromise.  People will sing and rejoice and people will cry and mourn. I think the key to this passage comes at the end, when the writer documents: 

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

This is how I am going to try to live my life this year.  A year of being Content. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

A Time for Everything

1For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

2A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

3A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

4A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

5A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

6A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

7A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

8A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

9What do people really get for all their hard work? 10I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 11Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. 

12So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. 13And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.