What does God want for me? What is His purpose for my life? What am I supposed to be doing with my life right now?
These questions are discussed in a passage I read this morning in Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
The passage is below if you want to take a peek.
This chapter starts off by talking about how there is a time for everything. A season for everything. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to grief and a time to dance, a tear and a time to mend, a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to be quiet and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
My perspective, I think these are verses talking about all the different stages of life, all the different feelings and circumstances, they give us insight into the fact that all the normal LIFE things that get thrown our way.. are just that.. they are normal life things. We need to have an expectation that there will be the good times and the bad, there are going to be the happy times and the sad times. I think that it‘s easy to get into the mentality that because we may be a Christian, that life will not be so hard, that things will be easier, “if God is on our side”, But my thought is that God doesn’t work that way at all. As a matter of fact, in my experience, I feel like God uses the everyday mundane things of life to teach me lessons, to mold and shape me into a better version of me than I was yesterday. Perfect, NOPE! …but, addressing the areas of my life that God knows He needs to work on, YES!
All of that said, when I read this chapter there were a couple of sentences which deeply resonated with me. They are in verse 11:
”Yet God has made everything beautiful for it’s own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God‘s work from beginning to end.”
Those words in themselves are just beautiful to me. The words communicate the understanding that God has of our initial tendency to not fully comprehend what He has for us and our lives.
It’s kind of saying that God gets the fact that we will not understand some of the things that happen in our lives. It’s kind of saying that He knows we need His patience. He knows that we need Him to help us understand a bigger picture because a lot of times we can’t see past the hurt or the anger of our current circumstances.
These words are beautiful to me because it communicates to me that God understands me, so it’s okay for me to tell Him how I really feel. He does understand.
It is beacutiful to me because it communicates to me so much love from the Lord. Even though we may not see it, He is working something beautiful and good from the beginning to end.
We are alwasy on His mind – always. The whole time during every circumstance. That is love. That is patience. That is patience. And yes, I know I said it twice. That is mercy. Gosh, it makes me smile to think about it. We are always on His mind… that speaks to how special I am to God. How special YOU are to God.
So many times I think we can lean toward thinking that the majority of the parts of our lives are so ugly and messy and just areas that we want to hide and we want to keep “outsiders” from seeing into what our lives really look like. But really, in a way, isn’t it all beautiful, even the ugly parts if God is using it to change hearts.
I think so.
No matter where we are. I think we need to hold our head high and know that we are doing the best we can for where we are today.
Maybe tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow, we can be a better us than we were the day before. With God’s grace, we can.
But, I think God wants us to see ourselves through His eyes sometimes and reflect that love back onto ourselves.
Give ourselves some grace. Give ourselves some of that love that Christ has for us. Give ourself some of that patience He has for us.
He wants us to love Him with all of our hearts. He wants us to respect and fear Him. But He also wants us to remember that we are His Child.
He wants us to remember that He will leave all the other 99 just to go look for us… One of us. That is how important we are to Him. That is how much He loves us.
He picks YOU!! … whoever the YOU is that is reading this. HE PICKS YOU!!
He’s got us. I believe with all of my heart that He will take care to ensure what is supposed to happen in our lives, if we are doing are best and seeking HIM… doing the next right thing… taking the next baby step forward.
He will not let us miss what He has for us.
We don‘t have to worry about seeing what’s next. We don’t have to worry about the fact that we may not get it right.
Maybe we won’t get it right.
Maybe we will.
But, I think our God is big enough and strong enough and wise enough to use whatever we lay in front of Him for His goodness. His purpose. He will shape it all together and make it just right for us.
Just how He wanted it… After all.. .He already knows.
He is ALL the steps ahead of us!!
Much Love ♥️
Michelle
Ecclesiastes Chapter 3:1-22
A Time for Everything
1 For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
2 A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6 A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
9 What do people really get for all their hard work?
10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.
11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.
13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
14 And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him.
15 What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.
The Injustices of Life
16 I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt!
17 I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds.”
18 I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals.
19 For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe[a] and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless!
20 Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust.
21 For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth?
22 So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is our lot in life. And no one can bring us back to see what happens after we die