There Is a Time to Eat BBQ… Turn! Turn! Turn!

There Is a Time to Eat BBQ… Turn! Turn! Turn!

The other day, someone near and dear to me and I were watching TV. There was a funeral on the screen, and a time-worn voice stoically recited Ecclesiastes 3 (E3), “There is a time for birth and a time to die…” across the room, I heard, “Ugh… I hate that passage at a funeral! It’s so cliché. Make sure they don’t do it at mine.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized they were right—not about the funeral part, but—about the passage being cliché and not really listening to its meaning anymore.

The rest of the story…

I must admit, the first eight verses are pretty singsongy in style. What most people don’t do is keep reading the passage. The last half tells you that your worth isn’t in your work but in the way you live. It says that God has put you—specifically you—into a certain point in time to do a specific thing but doesn’t give you a clue as to what to do. It’s all a God-created crapshoot. God creates you, slips you into your timeslot, and then asks you to do the right thing. Sometimes, it feels like you’re flying in a hot air balloon, and once you hit 3,000 feet, you’re then told to jump out without a parachute with the instructions, “Aim for the pond of water; it’ll break your fall.”

How Do I Know What to Do?

We are all born with an internal instruction manual; it’s called a conscience. And it’s updated more often than my Smart Phone or Smart Watch. Every time we read scripture, go to church, or spend time praying, we are getting the download for that precise time with the exact information we are going to need to face whatever’s coming.

But like buying a bookcase at Ikea, most people don’t want to spend the time reading the manual. So, they dig right in and put tab “A” into slot “D” when it should have gone into slot “B.” After they have put the bookcase together and have six or seven spare parts left over, and the project looks more like a Picasso sculpture than a bookcase, then and only then will they go back and pick up the manual to find out where they went wrong.

There’s nothing wrong with that! That’s a part of what E3 is trying to tell us. The very last line is, “What now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.” In other words, “Ya did it, ya blew it, ya came back and fixed it. Now move on.”

How Can I Update E3 to Make It Mean More to Me?

Personally, when something doesn’t resonate, I change it to make it more personal. Instead of reading E3 as is, try to update it and put it into your own life. Instead of “a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces,” change it to “A time to be with the family eating BBQ and a time to go on the road for work so I can pay the bills for the family.” Or “A time to be silent, and a time to speak” can become “A time to listen to Junior about what he’s feeling and a time to tell him a story of how I faced the same problem when I was his age.” It’s kinda crazy, but the more I do this, the more in touch with what E3 is trying to get across sinks in.

Below is the full passage of E3. Read through it and change it to fit your life today. Right now. Open your mind and let the words sink in. What do you need to hear? And here are the Byrds singing Turn! Turn! Turn! To help set the mood! https://youtu.be/W4ga_M5Zdn4

No One Can Determine the Right Time to Act

1 There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.

2 A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

5 A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

6 A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

9 What profit have workers from their toil?

10 I have seen the business that God has given to mortals to be busied about.

11 God has made everything appropriate to its time but has put the timeless into their hearts so they cannot find out, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.

12 I recognized that there is nothing better than to rejoice and to do well during life.

13 Moreover, that all can eat and drink and enjoy the good of all their toil—this is a gift of God.

14 I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.

15 What now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.