“There is an appointed time for everything.”
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to weep and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
Ecclesiastes reminds us of something very simple: life has seasons.
There are good days and difficult days. There are days when everything seems to fall into place, and days when nothing seems to make sense. There is a time when our prayers are answered quickly, and a time when we keep praying and God seems silent.
The problem is that we want only the good seasons. We want the laughing without the weeping, the dancing without the mourning, the success without the struggle.
But God is present in every season. And that brings us to the Gospel.
Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “The Christ of God.”
It is easy to say that when everything is going well. But immediately after Peter’s answer, Jesus speaks about suffering, rejection, and the cross.
It is as if Jesus is saying: If you really believe that I am the Christ, then trust Me not only during the beautiful seasons of your life. Trust Me also when life becomes difficult.
Sometimes we ask, “Lord, why is this happening to me?”
Perhaps another question can help us more: “Lord, what are You teaching me in this season of my life?”
Deliberate struggle
There is a story about a man who saw a butterfly struggling to come out of its cocoon. He felt sorry for it. So he took a pair of scissors and carefully opened the cocoon.
The butterfly came out easily. But something was wrong. Its body was swollen and its wings were weak. It could not fly.
What the man did not understand was that the struggle to get out of the cocoon was necessary. The struggle pushed fluid into the butterfly’s wings and strengthened them for flight.
Final Words
Sometimes we ask God to remove every struggle immediately. But there are moments when God does not remove the struggle because He is using it to strengthen our wings.
Brothers and sisters, whatever season you are going through today—joy or sadness, success or failure, certainty or confusion—do not lose hope.
Ecclesiastes tells us, “He has made everything appropriate to its time.”
And Jesus asks us, “Who do you say that I am?”
May our answer be not only with our lips but with our trust: “Lord, You are my God. I may not understand this season, but I know You are with me. And I trust You.”