Friday, November 4, 2011

What's the season?

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about how fundraising was going.  Thankfully, he is wise beyond his years and gave me the best advice.  He recited the following verses to me:


Ecclesiastes 3 (easy to read version)

A Time for Everything
 1 There is a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time.

 2 There is a time to be born
   and a time to die.
 There is a time to plant
   and a time to pull up plants. 



He then told me that everyone knows that it is impossible to harvest at the same time as you are planting.  You must plant first and then come back later to harvest.  He reminded me that this is my planting time.  I need to be patient and wait for the harvest.


Seems like simple advice...it was.  But it never occurred to me, I was trying to harvest before I even planted anything.  


I was interested to see what the rest of the passage said, so I looked it up.  How appropriate is the rest...


3 There is a time to kill
   and a time to heal.
There is a time to destroy
   and a time to build.
4 There is a time to cry
   and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad
   and a time to dance with joy.
5 There is a time to throw weapons down
   and a time to pick them up. [a]
There is a time to hug someone
   and a time to stop holding so tightly.
6 There is a time to look for something
   and a time to consider it lost.
There is a time to keep things
   and a time to throw things away.
7 There is a time to tear cloth
   and a time to sew it.
There is a time to be silent
   and a time to speak.
8 There is a time to love
   and a time to hate.
There is a time for war
   and a time for peace.

God Controls His World
 9 Do people really gain anything from their hard work? 10 I saw all the hard work God gave us to do. 11 God gave us the ability to think about his world, [b] but we can never completely understand everything he does. And yet, he does everything at just the right time. 12 I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. 13 God wants everyone to eat, drink, and enjoy their work. These are gifts from God.
 14 I learned that anything God does will continue forever. People cannot add anything to the work of God, and they cannot take anything away from it. God did this so that people would respect him. 15 What happened in the past has happened, and what will happen in the future will happen. But God wants to help those who have been treated badly. [c]
 16 I also saw these things in this life [d]: I saw that the courts should be filled with goodness and fairness, but there is evil there now. 17 So I said to myself, “God has planned a time for everything, and he has planned a time to judge everything people do. He will judge good people and bad people.”


My favorite part????  God wants to help those who have been treated badly and He does everything at just the right time.  


I know the harvest is coming. I know it is His plan for these boys to be off the streets. I just need to be patient and wait upon the Lord.

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