A TIME FOR EVERYTHING
Time touches everything we do. It measures our birthdays and our deadlines, our waiting and our rushing, the years we wish we could return to and the years we are glad to leave behind. We live inside it every day, yet it remains something we cannot quite grasp.
THE RHYTHM OF TIME
Genesis 1:14
And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,’
Ecclesiastes 3:1–8
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
Genesis 8:22
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.
Psalm 104:19
He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.
What season are you in right now, and where have you seen God working through it?
WHEN DEATH ENTERED TIME
Genesis 3:17–19
And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
Genesis 3:22–24
Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever’ – therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned
God kept Adam from the tree of life to spare him from living forever in a broken state. Have you sensed that same mercy in your own life, maybe without fully realizing it until now?
RIGHT ON TIME
Galatians 4:4–5
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Romans 5:6
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Habakkuk 2:3
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
Esther 4:14
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
2 Peter 3:8–9
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Psalm 31:15
My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
God’s timing may not always be what we want, but it is what is best. Where are you currently waiting on God, or where have you already seen His timing prove perfect looking back?
MAKING THE BEST OF TIME
Psalm 90:12
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Ephesians 5:15–16
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
James 4:13–15
Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’
Matthew 6:34
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Galatians 6:9–10
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Do you tend to treat your time as something you own and control, or as something entrusted to you by God to steward well? What would need to change for it to become the second?
TIME MEETS ETERNITY
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
2 Corinthians 4:16–18
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Revelation 21:1–5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’
Revelation 22:1–2
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
God has put eternity into your heart. Where do you notice that ache for something beyond bound time showing up in your own life?
What is one truth about time you want to carry forward with you this week?
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
© Photo by René Boecking
© Photo by René Boecking