Eileen Beckett reflects on Ecclesiastes 3:1-2's proclamation that "to everything there is a season," exploring how the various times described in Scripture—planting and harvesting, building and tearing down, laughing and mourning—apply both literally and spiritually in the believer's life. She emphasizes that spiritual maturation involves recognizing appointed seasons, such as hating sin and worldly things while building others up with words, and underscores the Reformed doctrine of God's sovereignty over human lifespan as found in Job 14:5, arguing that the Lord alone determines our "numbered days" beyond the reach of medical intervention. Through personal reflection on loss, Beckett grounds her theological meditation in the comfort that God's providential appointment of our days provides believers during times of grief and uncertainty.
What does the Bible say about the seasons of life?
The Bible teaches that there is a time for every purpose under heaven, as stated in Ecclesiastes 3:1-2.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
How do we know that God determines the days of our lives?
Job 14:5 reassures us that God has appointed the number of our days and knows their limits.
Job 14:5
Why is it important for Christians to recognize the times to mourn and to laugh?
Recognizing these times is important for Christians to align their hearts with God's purposes and to respond appropriately to life's seasons.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”
“A time to be born and a time to die” Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
We have to be born to experience all else that follows in this lovely part of Scripture. We spend a life time after being born doing all of the other. There are the times we plant and then come the harvest. Maybe we have had to gather the stones from the land to cast them away to plant. There are our times of laughing and dancing; we love those times don’t we? We speak and we are silent, often not sure of when to do either. There is a time to build up and a time to tear down, perhaps in building our cities and our homes and they decay and must be torn down. We go through life loving those the Lord has put in our lives, family, friends and our brethren in the Lord. All of these things are literal yet in the believer’s life they are also spiritual. Once we know the Lord we also come to know that we are called to hate many things. We hate our sin and we are called to hate the things of the world. The scripture tells us that we are to be willing to hate our families if need be to be His disciple. For me that means to not set them up as idols and cleave to them before the Lord. We are hated ourselves because of the Gospel and because those who hate us hated Jesus first. We are called to build up with our words not to tear down and sometimes the Lord turns our mourning into joy and our laughter into tears. Spiritually, the Truth is planted into our hearts and we reap the harvest of faith and trust. It is our very lives that the preacher is talking about here.
But there comes a time to die.
Job 14:5 “Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass”
It is of the greatest comfort to know that our Sovereign God determines the days of our life. I call them our numbered days, for He knows that exact number of them. He has appointed the limits and we cannot pass those limits. We cannot live a day longer or a day less than what is appointed to each of us. He has given us the medical field to help us along our days but they do not kill us with their inabilities, their failures, their malpractice, nor do they keep us alive by their knowledge, their tests and their treatments. All of it rests in the Hand of the Lord our God.
My brother in law passed away yesterday, it was his time to die. He was a part of my life for over 46 years and I will miss him greatly, it is my time to mourn.
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