GOD'S TIME

Our lives revolve around time. If I asked you what time it is, I have a pretty good idea what you'd do. You'd glance at your watch, check the time and respond appropriately. 

Season and time

The first phrase in Ecclesiastes 3:1 gives us the right perspective on time: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." The two words here - season and time - imply duration and a point in time. Because everything has a season, nothing (at least on earth) lasts forever. God has apointed a "season" for everything. Seasons have beginnings and endings. They lasts, but not too long. In the life cycle there is a season for gestation, a season for childhood and youth, a season for middle age and a season for old age, followed by death. It's all quite natural; it's all ordained by God.

The word translated "time" means "a point in time." Within any given season, there is a point in time in which God has ordained everything to happen.

All things beautiful

God has made everything beautiful in its time. At the appropriate point in time, God will make everything fit into the season of your life. It's like the pieces of a puzzle. You struggle to piece things together, and then all of a sudden things just seem to fall into place. That's what happens when you commit both your times and your seasons to God.

There is a fitting point in time that God has determined something should happen. Accordingly, God will never be late and He will never be early. Furthermore, He knows the proper duration for that event. He never holds it over too long or cuts it off too short.

God knows the most fitting points and the most appropiate seasons of our lives as well. He knows exactly the number of days He's given to you, and nobody can shorten those days; nobody can lengthen them either. Our times and seasons are in God's hand, God makes "proper" in its time.

Going according to plan

If God has already determined the times and seasons of our lives, is it possible to die before our time? In a sense it is. Solomon exhorted, "Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish: why should you die before your time? (Ecclesiastes 7:17). Through wickedness or self-will, we can deprive ourselves of the fullness of days that God would have liked to have given us, but even this must be approved by God and is a part of His eternal plan.

Whether God chooses to take us to Himself through the blessing death or the blessed hope, in God's plan we end up being with Him forever. Instead of fretting about the days of our lives or worrying about how long we will live,  life would be more enjoyable if we simply rested in the Lord and committed all those days to Him, including our final days.

When you live and die in the knowledge of God's eternal plan, you will live and die with this confidence - God makes all things beautiful in their time.