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Reflection: Holding God’s Gifts Lightly

I have a passion for working with wood. It was a passion born out of necessity. To put it bluntly, I couldn’t afford the furniture I wanted for our home on a pastor’s salary. So I learnt to make it. It’s difficult to describe that delicious feeling you get when a handcrafted dovetail joint fits snugly together. Let’s just say that I’m not at all surprised that Jesus was a carpenter!

But here’s the thing: all those bits of furniture which I once thought were so indispensable to me, are now just clutter in a life I want to simplify in readiness for death. This teaches me that everything has its season, and we are to hold onto things lightly, knowing that the best is yet to come.

One of the great advantages of being free of clutter is that you become lighter on your feet – more ready for God to send you anywhere… as I hope you are.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I want to push aside the clutter of life and say to you that I’m available for any mission you would have me do. I don’t want to waste a single opportunity to speak your truth and show your love.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22

A Time for Everything

1There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

9What do workers gain from their toil? 10I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15Whatever is has already been,

and what will be has been before;

and God will call the past to account.

16And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,

in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment

both the righteous and the wicked,

for there will be a time for every activity,

a time to judge every deed.”

18I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Are We There Yet?

Day 9 of 14

NIV

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Days

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22