The Right Time

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 215, The Right Time.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1.

This verse opens one of the most famous poems in all of literature — not just in the Bible. What follows are fourteen pairs of opposites: a time to be born, a time to die; a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to keep, a time to cast away. It's poetry, but it's also one of the most practical truths we can carry into an ordinary day.

Notice that the Preacher isn't promising every season will be easy, or that every season will make sense while we're living through it. He's saying something different and, honestly, deeper: every season has its place. Even the season that hurts, even the one we don't understand, even the one that feels like it's lasting far too long — it has a place within a larger purpose. Only, most of the time, we only see that purpose looking backward, never while standing inside the present moment.

And look at the second half of the verse: "under heaven." That isn't just a poetic phrase for location. It's a theological statement. The seasons we live through don't unfold in some chaotic universe with no direction, no one in charge. They happen under heaven — under God's dominion, under the gaze of the One who governs all things, including time itself. That changes everything. Your difficult season isn't random chance lost in the void. It is under God's own heaven.

I think much of our suffering comes from something simple: we fight against the season we're actually in, demanding that it be some other season. We're in a season of waiting and we want it to already be the season of harvest. We're in a season of weeping and we demand it already be the season of laughter. But the wisdom of Ecclesiastes begins right here: honestly recognizing what time you're actually in — and no longer spending all your energy denying it.

And here is a word of hope, hidden inside that very same truth: if life has seasons, none of them is permanent. The pain you're carrying right now is not eternal — it is a season, and seasons pass. And the joy you're living in right now, if you're living in one, deserves to be lived fully, without fear, because it too is a season, and it will change.

So today, I want to invite you to do something simple and honest. Write, in a single sentence, what season you're living in right now. It doesn't have to sound pretty. It just has to be true. And then, offer that season to God in prayer — not asking that it end tomorrow, but asking for wisdom to live it fully, under His heaven, instead of spending your energy resisting it.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.