A Time and a Place for Everything
Today we welcome Thomas Alexander as our guest blogger. Thomas is a member of the EYE’14 Mission Planning Team and blogs at The Current Church. I highly recommend you take a few minutes to visit his blog and read some of his reflections on life as a young person in the Church. Thomas’ wisdom and reflectiveness are an important component of the EYE’14 Team and of our church as a whole. As we continue our journey to EYE’14, you will hear from other youth members of the team. Each has a unique perspective and abundant gifts for ministry that they have been called to share in this process.
Time to do God’s Work
We just concluded our second planning meeting for Episcopal Youth Event 2014 (EYE’14). It was productive and full of spirit-led conversation. It was a wonderful weekend!
Now having experienced two meetings such as this, I have thought a lot about gatherings. Each of the fifteen or so youth as well as the ten or so adults are coming from families, schools, jobs, personal worries, and so forth. It is miraculous that we were able to hold onto what we love so dearly at home and put our time towards the word God called us to in that moment.
“There is a time and a place for everything.”
I have heard those words more than I can remember. And they are frustrating beyond belief. There is little I have control over. I can’t control the weather to be the ideal 72 degrees and slightly windy that I would like each and every day, or even the most tragic events that happen such as shootings or terroristic attacks.
The one thing I feel I should have control over is timing. I should be able to decide when and how I should use my time for rejoicing, mourning, loving, hating, fighting, etc. Right? Well, Ecclesiastes says something different:
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 throw 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 throw 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.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NRSV)
These verses are extremely helpful for me, and in more ways than one.
God has his own watch. He has work to which he calls us to. We are workers in his harvest. Just like a worker in the harvest must learn to know when to separate timing, I must do the same. There is a time to mourn and a time to stance, a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.
As Christians, we are to recognize the work to which we are called, and realize that it may be time for God’s work, despite the troubling times we might have just experienced.
Because, of course, it’s time to do God’s work, and frankly, what better job could we have in front of us?
