The Season of Life

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

~Ecclesiastes 3:1-9

Everything in the world runs in cycles; that is how God created things, including us. We see the cycles in everyday life – clocks, calendars, work schedules, the weather, and our very lives. We are conceived in our mother’s womb, we grow and develop at a certain rate and are born at a certain time. We grow as children, become adolescents, young adults, and the cycle begins again with us as we marry and have our own children. In the Disney movie, The Lion King, one of the songs is called “Circle of Life.”

“It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life…”

(©1994 Elton John)

We all live in this circle of life and there’s nothing we can do that stops it. It is what some call the “law of the universe,” but in reality, it’s the law of Almighty God. When God calls something into being, it cannot be undone. We are all the creation of His mighty hand. There is nothing created that was not created by Him, through Him, and because of Him (Colossians 1:16). All life was created by Him, and that includes the planet we live on. He created it in perfect proportion to suit the human body’s need for different elements, food, oxygen, sun, rain, and wind. Everything serves a purpose under the hand of God. For humans, our purpose is to serve Him, worship Him, and then spend eternity with Him. When we stray from that purpose, we suffer consequences just like Adam and Eve did when they disobeyed God.

“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 3:17-19).”

Humans have been disobeying God since the beginning and we continue to do so to this day. No matter what we are told, what we experience, we continue to go back to our sins in spite of the pain it causes us. As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Why do we do it? What is the appeal of a painful life? I have theories but as a human who was caught up in the cycle of insanity, expecting different outcomes even though I was doing the same things over and over, I can’t explain why we do what we do. Some say it’s human nature to do things the hard way, and while I suppose that’s true to an extent, it’s still not an explanation, it’s just a rationale. So, what is our true purpose here on earth, our purpose under the sun?

“Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3).”

There may be things that we cannot control – the sun is going to come up when it comes up; the wind is going to blow where it will; the rain is going to fall upon all the earth; we are going to follow the cycle of life - birth, growth, marriage, death, just like those before us did; but we don’t have to follow a path that leads us to hell. That much is within our control. We have free will, we can choose Who to follow. We can decide the path of our souls, and as long as there is breath in our bodies, we can choose to stop living like we can’t wait to get to hell, and start living like Heaven is waiting for us.

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).”

Read 1 Kings 13-15

Weekend reading 1 Kings 16-22

©2018 Marie McGaha