A time for every purpose

David Jones on while there was great tragedy there was always a hope of better days to come

I’VE had some time to go through my collection of long-playing records this last week. I was quite surprised by the wide range of my musical tastes from my teenage years to the last time I bought an LP which must be back in the 1970s.

One LP I came across was by The Byrds titled Turn, Turn, Turn. The Byrds were an American band of the 1960s who popularised folk songs, particularly those of Bob Dylan.

According to the notes on the LP, the title track was based on verses from the Old Testament which at that time didn’t mean that much to me.

By now I realise how especially meaningful these words are. ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’

These times are uncertain for us all and yet as Christians we believe that the different seasons of life are not random because God is in control and his timing is always perfect: ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time.’ The verse goes on to say that ‘he has also set eternity in the human heart.’

We often fill our lives with other things: career, pleasure, shopping and relationships.

While good in themselves and very much part of our lives, yet within us is that desire for something more, the eternal – that which only God can give and then to be sure that we can and will come thought all the ‘seasons’ of life and learn from each and every one.

In 1918 the Spanish flu saw a worldwide loss of over 500 million lives. Our parents and grandparents endured the hardship and turmoil of two world wars which again saw tremendous loss of life.

These were seasons of life which came and went and while there was great tragedy there was always a hope of better days to come and confidence in a securer future which eventually came to be.

Pandemics, conflict and war are not of God, they are of human origin often born of the evils of racism which are totally contrary to God’s will and purpose.

Arrogance and the misuse of God’s intentions in creation have brought this season upon us. However, summer is here, the sun is shining and God is unchanging in his protective grace. ‘Turn, turn, turn,’ a time for every purpose under heaven!