Trusting God in Changing Times

We must surely add to that famous couplet of certainty—“death and taxes”—the inevitability of change. In contrast to our immense, immutable, and impassible God, to be human is to be subject to change in ourselves and in our world. We wish it were not so, but no one is exempt. All around us people are looking for an answer to the inevitable. For some it is surgery, for others therapy, but the only refuge that truly drives out anxiety is our changeless God who holds all change in His hands. This is one of the lessons that Solomon learned, and passes to us, through the wisdom of Ecclesiastes.

Solomon starts the book of Ecclesiastes by reminding the audience of the unstoppable cycles of change in nature and through generations (Eccl. 1:4). Then, in chapter 3, he connects this change to the sovereignty of God: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Eccl. 3:1).

God is Lord over the times—for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Solomon uses a literary technique that places opposites side by side as a way of saying, “These, and everything in between.” For example, “a time to be born and a time to die” is a way of describing the whole of life with all its changes, from conception to the moment our heart stops beating (Eccl. 3:2). Every activity, every emotion, every experience, every matter under heaven, is determined by God. He is absolutely sovereign over absolutely everything. His plan, His timing, and His rule extend to birth and death, sickness and health, destruction and repair, love and hate, war and peace.

God’s rule even extends to those things that appear to be in our own hands:

A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up. (Eccl. 3:3)

These may feel like decisions that humans make, but Solomon puts them alongside laughing and weeping to show that God decides ultimately when they happen (Eccl. 3:4). Indeed, the way the poem is constructed is designed to show our lack of control. There is no pattern or order to casting away possessions, tearing a garment, or keeping silent (Eccl. 3:5–7). It is deliberately random because that is how life often feels. One moment you are mourning a loss, the next you are embracing a friend, the next you are dancing with your spouse, all the while you feel hatred at the injustices you see around you, and war rumbles on around the world.

To be clear, where there is sin, God is not the author. Sin is the responsibility of the sinner, while God remains sovereign, superintending all things. God is the author of every change and He has a time for us to be promoted and to be fired, to be criticized and to be praised, to receive the cancer diagnosis and to get the all clear, to conceive and to miscarry, to be betrayed and to be shown loyalty, to have our investments grow and to have them crash, to be honored and to be dishonored, to be at war and to be at peace. God has set the times of them all. He has given these things to us from His hand; we are not in charge.

So much of our anxiety and distress in the changing seasons of life is due to the fact that we are not in control. And yet, trying to control these times and seasons, and even trying to understand why God sends them, is too great and marvelous a thing for anyone but Him (Ps. 131:1). Change is inevitable. We can’t leverage things for our gain. We are, quite simply, caught up in an adventure without the map. But faithful, wise living means we embrace this rather than resist it.

In the face of change, we must take our anxious hearts to the cross of Christ. It is there we see that God had a time for His Son to be crucified. As Jesus hung in shame and disgrace, no one looking on would have said that this looked like a winning idea, and yet it was in this greatest evil in history that God was accomplishing the greatest good the world has ever seen—the salvation of His people. And just as there was a time for His Son to die, there was also a time for Him to be raised.

In God’s time, every death in His kingdom is followed by a resurrection. This means that we can say with Solomon,

There is nothing better . . . than to be joyful and to do good as long as [we] live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (Eccl. 3:12–13)

We can trust that in whatever changes come our way, “God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Eccl. 3:14). We follow Solomon’s lead and by faith say that God is Lord of the times and these things are all beyond our control, so we will not worry because He has made everything fitting.