KILLING TIME

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust.

A Time for Everything

1 For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
2 A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

This well-known passage stresses the preciousness of time as a resource. In that light, think on this quote by Henry David Thoreau. “As if we could kill time without injuring eternity.” Time is our most precious resource, and Scripture assures us that our stewardship of the time we have been allotted is not something we should take for granted.