APR 24

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Memorise Ecclesiastes 3:11
“He hath made everything beautiful in his time…”

Let us look more closely at the list in Ecclesiastes 3. As you run down the pairs of contrasts, you will notice that the order is not always in one way; in that it is always the ‘good’ time first, followed by the ‘bad’ time. At least from our human perspective, we usually consider a time to be born a good thing and the time to die a bad thing. Likewise, we see a time to kill as something bad and a time to heal as something good. We then expect the list to be given in an orderly fashion: the ‘good’ time first, followed by the ‘bad’ time, or vice versa. However we realise that that is not the case, for the order is often mixed up, with no obvious pattern for which comes first. Do you wonder why this is the case?

We must realise that what we perceive to be bad things are not always bad in the sight of God. We may not enjoy the experiences of weeping, mourning, silence and hate; but nonetheless, they are all things which are made beautiful, in God’s time. From our simple human understanding of things, we think that the best experiences are the ones where we enjoy ourselves and the ones which make us feel happy and comfortable. However, we must realise that God does allow us to go through trials and hardships for reasons known only to Him. There are times when people ask, “If God is a good God, then why does He allow war, killing, and even death?” We may not have a direct answer for such questions, but we can see clearly here that such experiences in life are all included in God’s perfect divine purposes. They are that which have been decreed and ordained by God, and who are we to question them? If it were up to us, we might think it best if everyone did not have to die; that there were only good health and no killing; that people only embraced and laughed and danced. But that really might not be the best plan. God, in His wisdom, allowed for this whole array of human experiences because He knows that that is the very best. It is not for us to categorise experiences into ‘good’ and bad’, but we must, with Solomon, realise that all experiences are made beautiful in God’s perfect time.

Thought: What we think is good may not always be good in the sight of God.
Prayer: Lord, help me to understand things from Your perspective; and in times when I do not understand, grant me the grace to humbly accept Thy will.