Eccl. 3:1-9: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers gain from their toil?" (Today’s NIV)

Can we get our lives under control?

In each of the mentioned opposites in life there is a state that we would prefer: Being born, planting, healing, building, laughing, dancing, gathering, embracing, keeping, mending, silence/speaking, love and peace, who would not want to experience these. To the contrary we could certainly do without dieing, uprooting, killing, tearing down, weeping, mourning, scattering, giving up, tearing, hate and war.

But with both we are confronted in life. All our efforts to gain the one and avoid the other are in vain. Why is this? One reason is that our world is characterized by sin. For every good that God originally created there is a bad. But second it is just as evident that God leaves these negative experiences in existence even for the believer. He just doesn’t snatch us out of this world and it’s suffering.

The actual answer to this question is to be found in the next few verses: God wants to make us aware of the value of the beauty, the eternity and the joy that his works bring to us, contrary to our own efforts. But exactly for these reasons it’s worth to purposely look at and confront yourself with this list of bad things: Are they really that bad? Or is there the chance in each one of them to seek and experience God and his work in a special way?!