November 13, 2024

In 2024, we will strive to become more like Jesus by rediscovering the ancient practices of prayer, study, sabbath, celebration, and many more. Our knowledge of scripture, coupled with studying how Jesus lived his life while on earth, will help us become people that overflow with the goodness of God. Wednesday email devotionals will highlight the practices that have been discussed on the previous Sunday.

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Devotional

When I was growing up at a Christian school, we sang a variation of the Byrd’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” at least once a month in chapel, usually accompanied on a guitar by one of the chaplains. It was a fun song that usually brought a bit more energy than pretty much any of the other chapel music besides the theologically suspect “Chapel Safari.” While I didn’t know that “Turn! Turn! Turn!” had its roots in this passage from Ecclesiastes, I learned from that song about the manner in which so much of time must follow a cycle of seasons (and not the ones that school taught us).

 

There have been moments in my life when I simply didn’t have the words to pray: I could only produce some strange unformed sounds that I didn’t know how to voice. There have been seasons when all that I was able to do was allow my tears to be my offering to God. But there have also been times when I could do nothing but rejoice, to thank the Almighty for the blessings that He poured down upon me like a never-ceasing rain shower. 

 

We live in a world where we will experience hardships as often as we will the overwhelming joys for which we hope and pray. While this reality is one that we don’t always like to acknowledge, it is true. Despite what many of us were taught as children, life does not function as a graph where if we work hard and do the right things our lives will be easy and we will grow. We will inevitably find ourselves in seasons when we simply cannot do things in the ways that we have done them in the past.

 

When we think about how we wish to incorporate the spiritual practices of Overflow into our everyday lives, into a Rule of Life, it is helpful for us to think with the understanding that there will be seasons when things have shifted so that we struggle to do things in the ways to which we have become accustomed. The practices that we might find easy and helpful in the moments when we feel the most blessed often become a near impossibility when we feel as though the world is falling down upon our heads.

 

For me, this reality means that I tend to view my Rule of Life as having a Plan A and a Plan B mentality. I know what I need to keep myself present and growing in my relationship with God during the times when everything is going the way that I’d like for it to go; that’s my Plan A Rule of Life. I also like to form a couple of backup plans for ways to find renewal and refocus in the seasons when life is not nearly as easy. It is helpful to keep all of the disciplines we have studied in one’s back pocket so they are available when we are struggling to see God’s presence.

For Reflection 

When have you experienced a season where it has been hardest to connect with God? What was happening in your life during that time?

 

When you have been in one of those seasons, what helped you to renew your relationship with the Lord?

 

What spiritual practices that we have examined over the past year do you feel would be the most helpful for you when you are in an easy season of life? In a difficult one?

Prayer

Gracious God, we know that you walk beside us during every season of our lives, especially during the times when we feel as though we are most distant from you. Open the ears of our hearts that we might understand the ways in which we might renew our connection with you no matter what season we find ourselves in. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.

Rev. Scott Tucker
Pastor for Grand Adults