A Time to Hope: Ecclesiastes With Naomi ReedSample

A Time for Everything

We all live through hard seasons. One of my hard seasons was during our six years in Nepal, serving with a Christian medical mission. My husband was training local physiotherapists and I was home-schooling our three sons on a Himalayan ridge, amidst civil war, shoot-on-sight curfews, and monsoonal rain. I remember one day, during our seventh monsoon, I read Ecclesiastes 1:7. ‘All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.’ We had streams everywhere, and there were still 120 days of rain to go! But I continued reading. ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.' (Ecclesiastes 3:1). There I was, hemmed in by rain and civil war. My closest Nepali friend was dying of a brain tumor. I questioned God. How was he making this time ‘beautiful’? In whose eyes was it beautiful? I didn’t know, but I read on. ‘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.’ (Ecclesiastes 3:14.) I stopped there. God works in the world so that we will revere him, and respond to him. He longs for that. He’s made it possible through Jesus, and he longs for us to come to him in prayer and worship.

Reflect: Consider what it means to revere God. The dictionary says that to revere means to show profound awe and honor or to give utmost love and respect. It’s a ‘get on your knees and weep’ kind of thing. That’s what God is owed! Think back to a previous season when your response to God has been like that. Was it during a difficult season? What does it mean to revere God, today, in your current season, where God has allowed you to be?  

Prayer: Lord, we know that every day, in every season, is a fresh chance to respond to you. Please help us to revere you today, amidst the challenges and opportunities that you have placed around us. Thank you that in revering you, we can find hope in every season.