Ecclesiastes 3:1ff-There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die……”
As you read this article, you just went through a time change. 2008 is past and 2009 is started. Time is always changing. We’re all getting older. We all go through seasons of our life: birth, childhood, graduations, marriage, parenting, retirement, and death. Ecclesiastes says there is a season for everything. There is time to be young and there is time to be old. There is a time for dancing and there are other times for crying. There is a time to welcome in life and a time to let it go.
This past month I felt like I was caught in a time warp. In a matter of just a few minutes I experienced two radically different seasons of life. First, I visited with Harm La Meyer. Harm had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. We sat quietly in his hospital room chatting about what this diagnosis meant for his life and for eternity. We talked about his confidence in Jesus whatever the outcome would be. We read the Bible and prayed. We talked about death and how he was nearing it. It was a precious, but somber time. Helping someone get ready for death is a huge responsibility, but also a privilege. After I left Harm, I made a second visit. I walked to another room on the same floor of the hospital, this time to visit Casey and Diann Fisk and their newborn daughter, Cassidy. We laughed together. We praised God together for a healthy birth and new life. I rejoiced with them as I held Cassidy in my arms. We talked about what an amazing thing it is that God can fashion a little child in nine months. We then read Psalm 127 and prayed. Sharing with parents in the birth of a child is a wonderful privilege.
How can you shift gears and go from weeping over the thought of death one moment and dancing over the gift of life the next? It’s only by remembering that God has said there is a season for everything. That’s not a fatalistic way of looking at life, but a realistic and faith-filled way. More than just the fact that there is a season for everything in life, we have to remember that we have a God who is part of every season. He directs every season. He plans the seasons of our life. He doesn’t do that as a distant, uncaring, heavenly CEO, but he does it as our Father. He’s not limited by time. He wasn’t born and he’ll never die. He will never stop being God. And he’ll never stop being our Father because of his Son, Jesus. Knowing Jesus radically affects how you view the passing of life. It’s painful and difficult to face death. Death is our enemy and we weep over it. But it’s also true that God will keep us even in our hour of death and it will not defeat or destroy us just as it didn’t destroy our Savior. That helps us face the trial of death with hope. So too, God is God at birth. He knits us together in our mother’s womb. We are not the product of biology. We are God’s workmanship. We are made in his image and so we’re able to say that children are a heritage from the Lord.
I have no clue what will happen in 2009. But I do know that there will be change. For some of us it will time for a birth in our family and for others it will be time to die. In every season, God will stay the same. He won’t change. He’ll always be our faithful Father because of Christ.
Passing through the seasons of life with hope in God and Jesus,
Pastor Tom