30 Days of Bite-Sized Faith: Twenty-Two

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and and time to die.
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

That's a lot. Really, I can't address every single one of these pairings, but I wanted to include all of it, and I encourage you to read this familiar passage carefully and spend some time thinking about it. The portions that tend to really hit me are the ones that tie in with what I said yesterday. Planting and uprooting. Mourning and dancing. Tearing and mending. All these things happen, even though we'd often like to keep watering our dead plants instead of digging them up, or we would give anything for the garment to not have torn in the first place. Sometimes there is even time in between, when we are simply waiting for the courage or the right time to turn it around. Not many people go straight from mourning to dancing. And when a relationship is torn, very rarely can it be mended right away. All these things have their proper time. 

God acknowledges ups and downs. He will always work for our good, but it won't always feel good at the time. Even though it's painful to think about, we can't just glaze over the bad times and say "it doesn't matter". It does matter. Those times teach us lessons, and often they're lessons we desperately need, and wouldn't have learned if we had stayed comfortable. They also bring our blessings into focus. As the song lyrics say, "The shadow proves the sunshine." Going through times of grief and struggling towards something better makes us appreciate the good things that much more when they come. 

Know that there is a purpose for every season of your life. Take time to consider how God may be teaching you or working for your good right now, even (especially) when you would rather just skip to the next season.