1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Solomon begins chapter three with one of the most poetic and moving pieces of scripture ever written. His assertion, spoken from the temporal viewpoint, is also relevant to the eternal viewpoint. There is a time for everything. In other words, the seasons of our lives come to us all, and continue through our entire life. But is this a set pattern, something that comes around and eliminates randomness and free will? Are we just placed on a cosmic template?
When we view life on the temporal plain, it could certainly appear so. If there is a concept of God in us, we can view life as something out of even His control. But let’s look at it closer, as Solomon toggles in and out of both viewpoints, to see if we can determine what he means.
First, when we look at this piece, we see a few unique things. Each piece of scripture is fit with a positive and negative aspect, or an opposite element to each. Right in the first verse, we see that Solomon asserts that there is a “set time” for each of these “seasons” of life. The positive and negative elements reinforce really what happens in each life: we all go through ups and downs, tragedy and triumphs, times when our faith is weak and is strong. Essentially, life is not good if we have too much of one and not enough of the other. In fact, we need both good and bad in our lives. The bad teaches us what is good, and vice versa.
As an example, in our life we often have bad jobs. We all have stories of some of the worst places, and people, to work for. But you need to go through those experiences to understand what a good job is. When I got out of business school, I got a dream jo right off the bat. The pay was good, the company was great. We got off early on Fridays in the summer, there was a gym and a restaurant on site, travel agency, general store. There were all kinds of opportunities to advance and switch into different departments. But being my first legitimate business job, I didn’t know how good I had it. In time I left and got another job, and was flabbergasted that this job had none of the perks my original job did. That began an odyssey of jobs that came in all shapes, but reinforced the reality that the first job I had was a pretty good place. But I couldn’t understand that until I had more input- in other words, I needed bad jobs in order to appreciate the good ones.
We need the bad in our life as much as we need the good. The bad teaches us about the good, and the good drives us toward thankfulness. Thankfulness pushes us towards God, and that’s really where God wants us. To appreciate His gifts.
In the first verse, we see that Solomon lays out the parameters of the temporal life. “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” As soon as we are born, we begin to die. Between these two poles the seasons of our life occur.
And throughout the verses, we have the specifics. Mourning, dancing, weeping, laughing, searching, giving up, war, peace- all of us experience these in varying degrees. The point is this: we will experience seasons as we go through life- it’s the only deal we get. But what happens if we choose not to endure a season of life? What does that look like? Let’s look at a relationship. Perhaps you have had a relationship with your significant other and it comes to an end. Your heart is broken. You’ve gone from a time in your life that is loving and close to a darker and lonelier place. You’ve entered a new season, one that’s contemplative and deep.
But you don’t want to do that. In fact, spending that time alone really scares you. Instead, you go out to bars and find people who will help you forget, who will give you momentary amnesia while you heal.
So what’s the problem here? It is this: if you don’t go through the season to properly heal, you will repeat the same issues. I knew a man who did this relentlessly. He would find a woman, fall madly in love, move in with her, then a few months down the road his dissatisfaction would mount. He would be looking for a way out, and that way out was always another woman. He would begin another relationship, while in his existing relationship, and nurse it along until his primary relationship collapsed, then just move the new one in.
The questions is this: what did he learn? The answer is nothing. What ultimately happens in this scenario is this: one arrives at a place where relationships are useless, women are horrible, and none of it works. He learned to bypass a time when he was supposed to be alone, when God wanted to heal him and bring him into a new understanding, a stronger foundation.
We do this all the time with a variety of things. The problem is, when we don’t understand the season and don’t allow ourselves to live in it, it breeds meaninglessness. And as we look at ways to shift and shimmy and avoid, we also do something else that is detrimental: we try to control the situation.
Control is very bad for us. We’re not talking about self-control, which is very much biblical and necessary in our lives, but bald-faced control. It’s when we choose to remove the unstable nature of a situation into something manageable.
That doesn’t sound bad really; we all do it to some extent. But control becomes a snare for us because it is our grimy attempt to remove the mystery of life into something easily understandable. It scrubs away the trust God so wants us to have in our lives and replaces it with accomplishment. What happens, over time, when you try to control a situation is that you remove the true fellowship of God. In other words, you begin to remove the eternity element of your design.
Remember, you are made to work, to have relationships with others, and to have fellowship with God. When we try to control our outcomes, we’re taking that trust element away and saying “I can do it myself.” God is placed up on the shelf while you accomplish, and the eternal part of your design is denied.
Then something incredible happens in life. You begin to wonder why you are suddenly miserable. Why life doesn’t seem fun or enjoyable. It is because you’ve placed yourself in prison. You’ve thrown away the mystery. The very part God meant you to trust Him with, and decided you could handle it. Once the mystery, the trust, and dependence is gone, what do you have left? The understanding that you cannot do it on your own. Life becomes meaningless.
From a Christian point of view, control isn’t something we should indulge in. Control is in opposition to submission. In scripture we see that submission is an important foundational piece to the faith puzzle. We are to submit to earthly authority (1 Peter 2:13-14), Wives are to submit to their husbands (1 Peter 3:1-6), Young men to elders (1 Peter 5:5), and Christians to submit to others out of reverence to Christ (Ephesians 5:21). When we submit, we humble ourselves to a greater authority. So, when we try to control our outcomes, who are we submitting to?
It works for our benefit to submit. After all, in the Beatitudes (Matt 5:1-12), Jesus Christ lays out the groundwork for what a follower of Christ looks like. Before we can get to a point of truly following God, of standing up for God, we have to first submit. Verse 3:9-17
What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I 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.
15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. 16 And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there. 17 I 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.”
In this piece, Solomon again asks the question, “What do workers gain from their toil?” The answer is quite interesting. He pops in and out of the temporal view here, complicating the matter. He understands that it is a burden. He knows that God has set eternity into our hearts, a longing to understand this part of our nature. But he comes to the conclusion that we cannot figure it out. So what’s the solution? From the temporal viewpoint, it is easy: don’t think about it, just find enjoyment and peace in what you do, realizing that this too is a gift from God.
There is a sense of helplessness in this piece of scripture, one which is difficult to reconcile. If we look at it from the temporal view, we see Solomon exploring this idea, where there is wickedness, helplessness, a sense that no one can ever figure out the end result of God’s decisions, of what he allows and doesn’t.
18 I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” 19 For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. 21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth? 22 So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?
And finally Solomon ends on the fact that our fate is no better than the animals. We perish, we die and dissolve away. For the temporal point of view, it is quite dismal and final. It has no real meaning. We can’t claim a superiority above anything else alive, since our fate is the same, brining us to a point of helplessness, meaninglessness.