God's Time

We’ve just come through Christmas, that bright stretch of days when everything seems warmed by hope. And now we wake up to New Year’s Day.  A calendar page turns; another year begins; we are a little older. And we celebrate but wonder what is to come.

It’s a good day, then, for Ecclesiastes. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to be born, and a time to die… a time to weep, and a time to laugh… a time for war, and a time for peace.”

The poet is right: life comes at us in seasons, and much of what we face is simply the givenness of time. So New Year’s can feel like that treadmill: we run hard, the wheel turns, and we wonder where it all leads.

But then Ecclesiastes quietly drops a deeper truth. It isn’t only that everything has a time. It’s that there is a right time—“a time for every matter under heaven”—and that right time belongs to God.

Here’s the good news Ecclesiastes offers right now:

Time—your time, my time, the seasons of our lives—are held in God’s hands. God “has made everything suitable for its time,” even when we cannot see what God is doing.

That means you do not have to enter this year pretending you can control it. You don’t have to carry the burden of making every decision perfectly timed, every step flawlessly planned.

So wherever life takes you in the coming year—into joy or grief, starting or ending, planting or pulling up, speaking or silence, or starting new missions or ministries, remember this:

The seasons of your life are not finally in your hands. They are in God’s.

And by God’s grace, it will be well.

Grace and peace to you in this new year,
Pastor Mike