Every spring in my Old Testament class I look forward to getting to the book of Ecclesiastes.  On some level, the book upends some of my students’ expectation that everything in the Bible is particularly cheery.  But I also like to see faces when they recognize Scripture having been used in popular music (in this case, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds).  This was the first year where the blank stares significantly outnumbered the “oh yeahs.”  That’s the passage of time for you, I suppose.

Earlier this week I heard a reading of Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 and was reminded once again of how time is both general and particular, immense and specific to each of us.  A time for everything. Everything beautiful in its time.  Eternity set in our hearts as a gift and a frustration to push us towards the God who is beyond time yet so heavily invested in it.  Here’s the passage from the English Standard Version:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil?  I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;  also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.  That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

When talking about what to “do” with the Bible, I think in three categories: application, implication, and prayer.  If you can’t apply it point for point, you look at the implications of the passage for the big picture.  And if that doesn’t work (and even if it does), you bring the words into your prayer.  This passage definitely calls for that.