Monday Devotional: January 1, 2024

Bible Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 (NRSVUE)

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 throw 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 throw away; ⁷ a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep 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. ⁹ What gain have the workers from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. ¹¹ He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; ¹³ moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

The time has come again, as old has gone and new has arrived. Some of us pray that this year will not be like the last, remembering only the pains, struggles, and losses of what often seemed, at best, the meaningless march of one incessant second after another. Some of us anticipate the new as our hearts beat to the sound of a different drum that guarantees a fresh melody that will forever change our symphony of existence.

This new day of promise offers sacred space that beckons us to leave the celebrations, forgo anxieties, and simply rest in the thought that God has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. Life is, has, and will be experienced somewhere in the range of this list of fourteen pairs of opposites in Ecclesiastes 3 that briefly define the totality of human experience.

The Teacher reminds us that God has placed eternity in our hearts. Therefore, we realize that what we see is not all there is. We search for purpose and reason, yet find ourselves unable to grasp it all. The advice we receive for moving forward is these coming seconds, minutes, and hours that will too quickly become days, months, and another year is this: rejoice and do good. We are to eat and drink and find pleasure in our work because that is God’s gift to us.

We often make it too complicated. We have been blessed to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), while letting our good works point others to the God who meets us on every pole and every point in between. Our God is in the business of creating beauty.

Prayer

May we rejoice, do good, and recognize the beauty regardless of our place on the continuum of existence. Amen.

By Becca Stevens, Don Welch, The Upper Room Disciplines 2017, page 426.