“I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. … I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.”
Isaiah 45:5, 7
There is another important thing to notice about the Ecclesiastes “A Time for Everything” poem: it doesn’t have a discernible pattern or sequence. It doesn’t list all the good things on one side and all the bad things on the other. We read of birth and planting and weeping and scattering and embracing. There are times for searches and silence and love and war.
You might surmise from all this that life, indeed, is random and unpredictable. And who’s to say whether these times are good or bad? Is gathering or casting away stones good or bad? But we know unwaveringly what the poem’s writer also knew: God is in control.
Even in the randomness of life, we believe “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). We look closely at Isaiah 45 and are reminded that He is the Lord, high above all others. In the weakness of our attempts to understand the meaning of life, God says, “I will strengthen you … so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know that there is none besides me” (v. 6).
You might surmise from all this that life, indeed, is random and unpredictable. And who’s to say whether these times are good or bad? Is gathering or casting away stones good or bad? But we know unwaveringly what the poem’s writer also knew: God is in control.
Even in the randomness of life, we believe “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). We look closely at Isaiah 45 and are reminded that He is the Lord, high above all others. In the weakness of our attempts to understand the meaning of life, God says, “I will strengthen you … so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know that there is none besides me” (v. 6).
Scripture Focus
Isaiah 45:4-8
Insight
“Seasons come and seasons go./ They take me high, then leave me low./ But I’m still standing on the only rock I know./ You’re my cornerstone.” (TobyMac, 2022)
Bible In A Year
- Joshua 9-10
- Psalm 101
- Acts 26