My wife and I were enjoying an outing at a park on a short holiday in Melbourne.

A company was having a team building day. Two of the staff ran up to us with a strange request: “Can you do us a favor? One of our team games is to snap a photo of a couple imitating the classic Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett ‘Titanic pose’.”

We hesitated initially but obliged finally. Time to let our hair down. Time for real life to imitate reel life. Time for our good deed of the day.

They were grateful. We felt strangely relieved. It was a lovely unplanned moment of time.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 is the standout Bible passage of the meaning of time. So, what is God’s pendulum of time teaching us?

1. Time teaches us we are not God

The key is verse 11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has set eternity in the hearts of men yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to the end.”

We all have a “built in” sense that this commodity called time is outside us and outside our control. It comes from outside from someone greater and wiser than us.

So as we swing on this divine pendulum, we realize: “We are not self-made. We are not self-ruled. We are not God!”

No matter what we do in life “under the sun” we cannot stop the unavoidable oscillations of time.

We find ourselves arriving at seasons of life we never expected to experience.

And so we might say: “I never expected to miss out on a school or university of my choice. Or break up with my high school sweetheart.”

“I never expected to lose my father or mother so young. Or divorce my beloved spouse due to irreconciliable differences.”

“I never expected to get retrenched. Or fall so sick and lose my health. Or get hit with mid life crisis to lose my way in life so early.”

“No matter what I did, I could not stop my teenage son from turning away from God.”

“No matter what I did, I could not stop judging, criticizing, despising and hurting the very people God blessed me.”

Yes, time is outside us and outside our control.

It is as if God has given each of us a camera with a limited lens to get snapshots of the meaning of life. But none of us is gifted with a camera with a 360 degree panoramic and encyclopedic view of life.

We will always live with the “built in” frustration of not knowing the answers to all our deep questions of life’s unpredictability.

2. Time calls us to make a Life-changing choice

We come to the punchline about time in 3:14b: “God does this so that man will revere him”.

This is the main theme of the Bible’s wisdom books: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”

So we must choose. Choice is unavoidable.

Either we submit to God, his time and purpose. Or we subvert God, his time and purpose.

If we proudly reject God, life will be a burden, repetitive and utterly meaningless.

If, however, we humbly accept God’s masterful control of time and rightful control of life, we can “eat, drink and find satisfaction” as a divine gift, not as a human entitlement.

3. Time points us to Jesus – the man who came from outside time to redeem us from the tyranny of our Godless eternity for an eternity with God.

Ecclesiastes ends in 12:14: “The whole duty of man is to fear God and obey him.”

Because God is judge and going to call us to account for our days, life is supremely meaningful, not simply meaningless.

God has put us on notice that final judgement is a sure thing. The day for reversing sin with forgiveness and of reversing death with eternal life is here.

Why? God has sent his Son from outside of time. What do we know of Jesus?

Jesus lived his whole life acknowledging God’s masterful control of time and rightful control of life.

John’s Gospel characterizes Jesus faithfully fulfilling God’s mission according to God’s divine clock or “hour”.

Jesus comes to put us on notice: “God will do something about our meaningless life and times!”

So, the wisest thing we can do is to listen to God’s Son and repent. And start to live wise lives. Or else death will make a mockery of our self-determined life.

Challenge:

When God gives you a free moment of time, will you squander it on anger instead of peace, ingratitude instead of thankfulness, lust instead of love, anxiety instead of serenity, fear instead of faith, disobedience instead of obedience, self instead of God.

If we cannot responsibly handle small pockets of free time, how can we responsibly handle our whole life?

Left to ourselves and our devices, we will scroll ourselves endlessly to be digital zombies, we will game till we comatose, we will drown in social media connecting with strangers and lose our loved ones at home.

Prayer for a New Life and New Year:

Heavenly Father, I pray to accept Jesus’ masterful control of my times and rightful control of my life. Help me to steward, not squander, your precious gift of time.

I accept Jesus as my Saviour. And choose to live my times and seasons under him as Lord to experience the goodness of:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.