Bible.com.au: Reading Plan - Meaningless! Meaningless?

Reflection: These verses are one of the high points of Ecclesiastes – and the inspiration, of course, for one of the hit songs of the 1960s, The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!”.

If Chapter 1 offered us a glass-half-empty version of the relentless churn of reality – nothing new under the sun – this passage sees the glass as half-full. Not meaningless repetition, but rhythm. Human life is seasonal.

We humans are not in control of our circumstances. We are subject to time and tide – to seasons. The Teacher urges us to accept the season we find ourselves in, and to discern what this particular moment requires of us.

Question: 2020 has certainly been “a time to refrain from embracing”! Can you pick out two or three other “times” that describe the season you’re currently in, and/or the response it requires?

Prayer: Father, give me wisdom to discern the season, and to respond rightly to my circumstances. Help me to trust that you can bring beauty and good out of this moment that I’m in. May I keep in step with your Spirit, to the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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?

Meaningless! Meaningless?

Day 4 of 14

NIV

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Days

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22