There's A Season for Everything

One of the great privileges of being a pastor comes from being invited to join with families as they say goodbye to loved ones. Sometimes the process takes many months or even years. When this happens the family has time to prepare themselves (as much as any one can) to say goodbye and express their love to the family member who is passing. At other times, it’s a phone call that comes out of the blue, totally unexpected, leaving the family devastated. There’s no chance to say goodbye or I love you. 

It’s always devastating to lose a loved one. However, when a family member dies unexpectedly, it leaves us stunned, wondering how it could have possibly happened? Our problem is that most of the time we live with the illusion that we’re in control. We tell ourselves we have a good handle on things. Then the unexpected happens and we get blind-sided. It's at these times that we begin to realize that we have far less control than we normally think. Many of the major events in life are actually outside our control. 

Thankfully we find great encouragement from the passage we’ll study today, found in Ecclesiastes 3. After looking at the cycles of life that take place here on earth and discovering that humans have little control over much of what happens in life, King Solomon comes to a very encouraging conclusion: You may not have control over the events in your life, but God does!