‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ So there we are! Need I say anymore? The words are from the mind of the one they called ‘The Teacher’ in Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament.
We know nothing about him, but his words are very down to earth and sometimes harsh. He’s sees the weaving of God throughout all creation; the good and the bad. God permeates every part of life and creation.
We each of us struggle sometimes with the good and the bad; sometimes within ourselves if we are honest. Often the blamimg of others, the decrying of others. We are each a mix of many differnt forces and influences.
What the ‘Teacher’ does is to be brutally honest with his assessment of the world, but with a deep sense of God’s presence throughout creation. God does not disappear when bad things happen, God is there in the midst of it, not running away like an absent landlord!
In my time as a Chaplain in Prisons I came across moments in time when doors opened. Obviously physical doors (!) but also doors piled high with rubbish in people’s hearts and souls. These doors were sometimes very difficult to open for the individual involved. Trapped by lifestyle, drugs, mental illness, choices. I was constsntly amazed by how God’s Spirit could enter these lost places in people’s souls. At the right time, God would move in a person’s heart….’a time for everything’.
Take those words for yourself, begin to sense the time for everything, held within the love of God; even the dark places where it would be easy to believe that God does not enter. The suprise is that God is already there…and that makes me weep tears of joy and thankfulness.
Musings 