A Time For Every Purpose

As I was barbecuing dinner yesterday, I looked up at the inscription that is etched in the cement of the stone wall that is the exterior of our house. It is an inscription that I have noticed many times, but yesterday it had a profound effect on me. The inscription contains the two first names of the previous owners of our home and the date that the stone wall was completed. There is another similar inscription on the lake side of the house with a later date. Lately I have been thinking very much about the sovereignty of God and my last few blogs have reflected that preoccupation. Here in the cement is a moment caught in time twenty some years in the past. I pictured them both working hard together as a mature married couple to balance and construct a formidable stone wall of hand cut field stone. The stones are large, variable and native to the area.

My respect for the craft of stone masonry was cultivated as a child by watching my paternal grandfather carefully cut, split and chip off unforgiving stone pieces before balancing the stone in just the right position so that it would be set into the slow drying mortar. It is an art as much as it is a craft. The result is a very strong, weather proof and very enduring wall. The very material used with the mortar is as old as the earth itself. It must have been a very special and gratifying moment when they reached the top of those walls and inscribed their names and the date. It must have been a very memorable moment in their marriage as well. I do know that the husband passed away within three years of the last wall being completed.

What entered into my mind were the words of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. It is one of the most quoted sections of the Bible even in the secular world. Normally I avoid long quotations within this blog. Today is an exception. All eight verses need to be read together to get the full importance of the 14 positives verses the 14 negatives found within this selection.

1 ¶ To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
2 A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
8 A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace.

The verse that has haunted me as I write this blog is verse 5. The literal meaning of course describes the act of removing the stones from the fields in order to begin cultivation and then a time to gather them up in order to build stone walls with them. The actions of the former owners of our house on that special day reflected those very descriptions. Some modern commentators and indeed the paraphrased The Message suggest that these actions are imagery for the ebb and flow of marital love including physical love. I suspect that the inscribed days were special ones for their long lasting marriage as well.

The first verse tells us that there is a time and a season for everything UNDER heaven. As we age, we realize that indeed we all get our seasons. I must admit that I enjoyed the earlier seasons more that some of the later seasons. Eventually there is a time to die. It is my fervent belief that IN heaven, the fourteen negative times found in these verses do not apply. The fourteen positive times may have many additions, but we can be assured that if we believe and if we accept Jesus as our saviour, we need not be concerned with the negatives that, in a way, cancel out the positives here on this earth.

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