Our Seasons are Known (Ecclesiastes 3)

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

As the words of the preacher’s poem take root in my heart, I am struck afresh with the complexity of life’s flux. There are no neat equations to be wrought. And no particular order at which I can foresee life’s twists and turns.

Who knows when I will next be in a season of planting, or scattering. Or when a time to mourn or dance will greet my door. As the poem weaves through all of life, the shards and shadows take their place, all considered carefully by our Maker.

As the poem gathers momentum, I realise how much I do not know. I take stock of how little I can predict. Whilst eternity has been set in my heart, I cannot fathom ‘what God has done from beginning to end’.

And that’s exactly the point. Oh that sharp pointed goad, I greet you again, as you puncture my pretence. As my plans for life are laid bare, I begin to see life as I should.

As the gift from God that it is. In all its fleeting, majestic, mist-like beauty.

And in all my limitedness, I stand in awe that this is the way it is meant to be. To embrace my limits rather than to push against them. That is wisdom.

And I stand in awe at the Timeless One, who embraced our creaturely limits, stepping into the constraints of his complex world for but a season. What a wonder that in Him, our seasons are known, and our eternity is secure.