A Time to Live and a Time to Die

Lately I have had one of those nagging phrases in my head, "A Time to Live and a Time to Die". For the life of me, I could not understand why this was popping in my head while I was trying to sleep. Then I remembered Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

In verse one it says "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven". It does not say some things, it says every thing. This means that whether you are in bad shape, broke, unhealthy, this is a season that will come to an end. It also means that if you are on top of the world, money in the bank, popular, this will come to and end also. To everything there is a season. This is why it is so important never to lose our faith in God no matter what situation we are in. If you are doing great, keep your eyes on God. If you are down and devastated, keep your eyes on God.

The life of Job is so relevant to all of this because here was a man that had it all. He was rich, he had a bunch of kids which back in those days was a good thing, and he was well known. All of sudden, his world just came tumbling down. He lost everything he had, even his children. Sometimes I wonder if his wife was being used by God to test Job or if she was just full of the devil because she told Job to curse God for everything that was happening. The more you read about Job, you think that he turned away from God. His views definitely became blurry, but this goes to show that you may be mistaken about the way things are or why they are happening but the important thing is your heart and God knew that Job loved Him. That is why Job said, I would rather die than to curse God. Job may of not known it at the moment but this was a season and it would pass. The Bible says that God gave him many times over more than what he had.

The second verse of the same chapter of Ecclesiastes says "A Time to be born, and a time to die." You can look at this in many ways but let me tell you how I look at it. We are all born as a baby. This is how we come to life. We are conceived, we spend around nine months in the womb of our mother, and then we come into this world. The question is, "Are we really living when we are born?" Is this really the time that we are born. To come into a harsh world naked and cold. I believe that we are truly born when we meet Jesus for the first time. When we meet the one that died on the cross for us. This is our time to live.

To be able to represent our Lord Jesus Christ on this earth and have the opportunity to spread His word to the lost. To have a friend more powerful than any force in the universe to listen to us when we pray. Someone that will fill us with peace and joy when we are in the middle of headache. Someone that has given hope that one day we will be living in a mansion in heaven with Him. This to me is the season of living. If you do not know Christ as your savior, you are not really born. You are physically but not spiritually and it is a lonely road if you have to travel it alone.

But like the Bible says, there is a Time to Live and a Time to Die. To everything there is a season. Yes, we all have to die. The Bible says that everyman will be born and will die but guess what, if you have lived with Christ in your heart, your death will be a very very very short season because faster than the blinking of an eye, you will be in heaven. The Bible says that Jesus will come like a thief in the night. We do not know when it is going to happen but it is going to happen. Death to a Christian is only one last breath and then we get to see Glory.

I love this chapter because if you read it all, you realize that we must all go through many hardships and triumphs, joy and sadness, riches and poverty, but one day it will all come to an end and we will live for eternity with our Lord.

To end, I want to say one last thing. In verse seven it says "a time to keep silence and a time to speak". I will give my expert view on this, (I am no expert). If you are going to judge others and put people down, keep silent. If you are going to help others and give them words of hope and the message of salvation, it is a time to speak. Let us love one another no matter what situation they or you may be in because according to this passage, the people we may be putting down may be the ones one day we will need to pull us up.

Philip