Dear one,
“Life can be seen and experienced as the ebb-and-flow of waves upon the shore.” Last week a good friend shared this thought with me, and then he directed me to Ecclesiastes 3: “For everything there is a season.” Perhaps one of the ironies of my life, given the time, energies, and thought I have poured into the Scriptures, is the scant attention I have given to such a famous passage. However, last week that “season” came, when I discovered the richness in those words—it was as though I was hearing them for the first time.
Rather than hearing a negative fatalism, pervasive throughout Ecclesiastes, last week I heard: there truly is a time … “a time to break down, and a time to build up … a time to weep and a time to laugh … a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together … a time to keep silence, and a time to speak”. That is, I heard that these moments exist, and that these ebbs-and-flows can be good and right in their own time.
In the context of my life, dawn broke: seasons exist, during which certain endeavors characterize that season, but my security and purpose is not to be found within that seasonal activity or orientation. It is not as though I am to construct a monument and thereby proclaim: “This is it; this is the culmination; this is permanent; this is the meaning of my life.” Rather, in the living of my life, only my Lord can have such preeminence and thereby such permanence. With new light, I glimpsed: if I am rightly directed to Him, He then gives me seasonal freedom. I can delight in building up, and equally, I can delight in breaking down.
Presently I am experiencing a season of international travel, and with this season come the energies to write and to edit for the sake of struggling pastors. And yet, reasonably I know: “Mary and I are truly pushing the envelope: four international trips in five months, Uganda in three weeks—that’s a little crazy.” Irrespective, that’s what we’re doing, and it is good and right for now, knowing that this season might end quickly: my kidney stones, or some other millimeter phenomenon might abruptly usher me into another season. With this thought, I am not seeking to be realistic; no, I seek to delight in the One, who controls the seasons.
Given this season, I am pleased to share my meanderings with you.
Ebbing and flowing,
Stan
Ps. If helpful, please share my musings with others …