Constant Change

Read: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

IN WORD The human experience is filled with anticipation of the good things and dread of the bad. We have dreams, goals, hidden desires, and needful impulses. When we most expect fruit and fulfillment, we find none. Often when we expect barrenness, God gives fruit. The seasons of life frustrate us.

The writer of Ecclesiastes—Solomon, most likely—is aged and philosophical, and while he does not embody the hope that Christians have been given, he knows a thing or two about finite life in this physical world. He has seen emptiness and futility. And, apart from God, he has seen meaninglessness. If there is no God, if no afterlife, if no hidden hope that we cannot see, then there’s no point to any of this life that we’re living. And still, blind to a discernible purpose, Solomon is able to say: “There is a time for everything.”

Solomon has seen seasons come and go. He knows the cyclical pattern of living is not just a matter for meteorologists, it’s also a matter for relationships, labor, and the myriad emotions we have. In our lives, there will be unfruitful seasons. There will be times of discouragement and even despair. There will be pointless tasks and intractable conflict. Interspersed with all the joys of the human experience, there will be latent seasons, periods of fallow ground and backward regress. It won’t be all good, all the time.

IN DEED That’s important for us to know. We’ll drive ourselves crazy if we don’t understand that there are seasons in our lives. If you’re particularly fruitless now—or even fruitful—know that it’s only for a time. If a relationship is difficult—or even perfect—it, too, is only for a time. We have to get used to constant change.

Many Christians kick themselves or question God when life isn’t running smoothly. Don’t. It’s only for a season. Do not expect your entire year to be warm and sunny. Part of it will be cold and rainy. And if you’re in winter now, know that spring is on the way. Its time always comes.

After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there come clear, open skies.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD