A time for everything

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."Ecclesiastes 3:1

Ecclesiastes is the most honest book in the Bible, written by someone who had everything, tested everything, and had the courage to report what he found. And this line may be the hardest wisdom to swallow in an age of hurry and express delivery: things have a time, and time doesn't obey us. The chapter goes on listing: a time to plant and to harvest, to weep and to laugh, to embrace and to step back, to be silent and to speak.

A good part of our tiredness isn't too much work. It's fighting the season. There's something in your life right now that's in a waiting season, and you're trying to pull out of the ground what's still growing roots. And there's something in a letting-go season, and you're holding on with both hands. Forcing summer in the middle of winter wears anyone out.

But here's the secret every farmer knows and we forgot: winter works too. Under the still ground, roots go deeper, the soil rests, the sap gets ready. God's "empty" seasons are never empty. Joseph waited in captivity, Moses waited in the desert, Jesus Himself waited thirty years in a carpenter's shop before three years of ministry. None of those waits was wasted; all of them were root.

Today's application: diagnose your season honestly. Is it time to plant (begin), to water (persist), to wait (be still) or to let go (close)? Write the answer in one word. And then pray the prayer of someone who trusts the Farmer: "Lord, give me peace with the season you've put me in, and eyes to see what it's doing under the ground."