Skip to main content

There Is A Time

 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.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

 

I know this isn’t the version you’re probably used to but if you can read this passage without singing “turn, turn, turn” at the end of the line, you’re stronger or less musically educated than I am.

One of my friends recently asked how we (writers) manage the monster of comparison. I’m not sure that the act of comparison is the problem as much as the responses of envy, arrogance, and self-pity. But part of my answer involves walking around the park where I live in Florida. When this first happened, I was living in a motorhome that was more than thirty years old and that had not been as well cared for as it should have been. In short, it was a junk pile searching for a junkyard even though the basics still worked.

In the same park, there were park-model double-wide mobile homes of comparatively recent vintage with wide-screen TVs visible through the windows and motorhomes at least as long as ours but with two, three, or even four slide-outs. I remember my ego bleeding. Why did they get to have what they had while I was stuck with what I had? After praying for some time, God told me that what I had was what He chose for me to have for the moment. He asked if I would accept that choice for me for now.

We had to have that conversation more than once, or at least, I’ve had to review that conversation more than once over the years. When I see other writers making money at their craft, I struggle. Part of the struggle is because I know I’m not doing all I should be to market my books, and part of it is because this is where I am right now. It is not my time to be what I think is successful. Am I willing to accept that? Am I willing to accept the blessings I receive instead of the ones I want when I can get my attention off of what I don’t have, and on to what is going on in my life, I can see blessings? They just aren’t in the form I want them to take. Am I willing to accept that for now? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more