Ecclesiastes 3:11 (AMPC)
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”
In the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, one of the characters Sonny says, “It will be all right in the end….if it’s not all right then it’s not yet the end.” That’s the same thought behind today’s passage from Ecclesiastes. Solomon tells us the God “has made everything beautiful in its time. (emphasis mine).” In it’s time…..not at the time.
Many times when we are going through life, things happen that are the exact opposite of beautiful. It can be hard to remember beauty when you’re in the midst of trial. When life is falling apart around you, when you’re struggling will illness or tragedy, when the wicked seem to be prospering while the righteous seem to be languishing, when bad things are happening to good people, it is easy to doubt the presence of God. It’s easy to say that if God exists, He can’t be a good God. Those are the moments when our faith comes to the top. We’re confronted with what we really believe about the nature of God, and we’re faced with the choice to cling to our faith and strengthen it or to let it fall by the wayside.
But God promises us that when the time is right, He makes it beautiful. It’s on the other side of the storms in life that we see the most beautiful sunrises. At the time, it may look anything but beautiful. But in God’s timing, it becomes beautiful. That’s what Paul tells us in Romans when he says that God works “all things together for the good” of those who love God. If we put our faith in God, He promises that no matter what life throws at us, He can make it good. He can make it beautiful.
Are you trusting God for His timing? Are you pressing in during the rough seasons and looking expectantly for the time when God makes it beautiful? You can begin today.
Prayer: Father, thank you for the promise that you can take the ugly things in our life and make them beautiful when we trust in your timing. Help us to remember that you have a time for everything and that we need to wait on your timing if we want to see the full picture of what you are doing. Help us to press into your presence and to seek a closer connection with you when times get rough. Thank you for walking with us through every trial. You never leave us to figure it out on our own. You are faithful. We can put our trust in you. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
A Beautiful Mess 