One of the greatest discoveries that you and I can make is that each day of our lives bestows a 24-hour gift of time.  What time is it in your life? Time to go to college? Get a job? Get married?  Move to California?  Invest in the stock market?  Or is it simply time to eat?

The book of Ecclesiastes has the benchmark reading on the passage of time in all of literature.  It's a challenging and mysterious book.  At first glance, it's a book that you sometimes wonder how it actually made it into the canon with all its cynical talk about, "life is vanity." But then one stumbles upon the third chapter, the beloved list of things for which there is a proper time.  It is the poetic gem that touches on common everyday experiences that we all go through from cradle to grave.
 
How are we to perceive all the ups and downs in life?  Is life a random, arbitrary process, or is it a gift from God?  Does God truly make everything "beautiful in its time"?  Come to worship this Sunday ready to explore these probing questions as I preach on these timeless words.  Life is indeed a roller coaster ride.  Can we enjoy the ride?

Prayer for Today

O God, thank you for the various seasons of our lives-for the moments of exhilaration that put pep into our step, but also for the moments of challenge that enable us to learn and grow.  Through all the ups and downs of life, mold us into the people you have called us to become.  Amen.
 
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...God has made everything beautiful in its time. -Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11