Time Enough

A common lament of the human race is "there's never enough time." We're forced to live our lives according to the clock and the calendar, the twin tyrannical taskmasters of time. Our schedules demand our strictest obedience, and a single missed deadline or forgotten appointment can throw it all into chaos, sheer pandemonium.

The preacher of Ecclesiastes (generally accepted to be King Solomon) knew this well. He also understood time not as just the chronological progression of seconds and minutes, but as seasons, of "right moments," of "now is the time for this." It's this latter sense we see in the famous time poem of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Seven of those eight verses are structured as "a time to [something] and a time to [opposite of something]." We all know some of them: "a time to be born and a time to die," "a time to kill and a time to heal," "a time to tear and a time to mend."

If nothing else, the time poem teaches us there's time enough for everything in life, whether it's something positive or something negative. These things may or may not happen precisely as dictated by "clock time," but by "season time," they're always on time. Things always happen at precisely the right moment; they happen on God's time according to His perfect and holy will.

I encourage you to break free of the tyranny of time. Don't be anxious in your waiting. Don't force things to happen before they are ready. And always remember that the eternal God is also the Lord of time.