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), \u201cThere is a time for birth and a time to die\u2026\u201d across the room, I heard, \u201cUgh\u2026<\/em> I hate<\/em> that passage at a funeral! It\u2019s so clich\u00e9. Make sure they don\u2019t do it at mine.\u201d The more I thought about it, the more I realized they were right\u2014not about the funeral part, but\u2014about the passage being clich\u00e9 and not really listening to its meaning anymore.<\/p>\n The rest of the story\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n I must admit, the first eight verses are pretty singsongy in style. What most people don\u2019t do is keep reading the passage. The last half tells you that your worth isn\u2019t in your work but in the way you live. It says that God has put you\u2014specifically you\u2014into a certain point in time to do a specific thing but doesn\u2019t give you a clue as to what to do. It\u2019s 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\u2019re flying in a hot air balloon, and once you hit 3,000 feet, you\u2019re then told to jump out without a parachute with the instructions, \u201cAim for the pond of water; it\u2019ll break your fall.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n How Do I Know What to Do?<\/strong><\/p>\n We are all born with an internal instruction manual; it\u2019s called a conscience. And it\u2019s 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\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n But like buying a bookcase at Ikea, most people don\u2019t want to spend the time reading the manual. So, they dig right in and put tab \u201cA\u201d into slot \u201cD\u201d when it should have gone into slot \u201cB.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing wrong with that! That\u2019s a part of what E3 is trying to tell us. The very last line is, \u201cWhat now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.\u201d In other words, \u201cYa did it, ya blew it, ya came back and fixed it. Now move on.\u201d<\/p>\n How Can I Update E3 to Make It Mean More to Me?<\/strong><\/p>\n Personally, when something doesn\u2019t 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 \u201ca time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces,\u201d change it to \u201cA 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.\u201d Or \u201cA time to be silent, and a time to speak\u201d can become \u201cA time to listen to Junior about what he\u2019s feeling and a time to tell him a story of how I faced the same problem when I was his age.\u201d It\u2019s kinda crazy, but the more I do this, the more in touch with what E3 is trying to get across sinks in.<\/p>\n 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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Public](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/2144\/2024\/03\/Building-Manuel.jpg\")