A Time and a Blessing | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 | 05/31/26

All right. Well, grace and peace

everyone. It's so sweet to be with you

again this morning. As always, my name

is Josh. I'm one of the elders and

pastors here, and it is my the great

privilege of my life to get to convey

what I have received from God's word.

You ever thought about how much

technology and time and money and energy

has gone into trying to give you the

illusion of control?

We plan for our careers. We save for our

retirements. We manage our calendars. We

monitor our health. We organize our

lives down to the smallest detail. We

live in a culture that constantly

conveys to us that if we just work hard

enough, plan carefully enough, make wise

enough decisions, we can shape the

future we want

until there's a military trade embargo

somewhere on the other side of the

world. Then it

upsets everything.

Sooner or later, we all, even if stuff

like that doesn't happen, we run into

this reality that we can't control

called time.

No matter what we do, we cannot stop our

children from growing up. We cannot hold

on to seasons we love. We can't speed

through seasons of pain. We can't keep

tragedy at a distance because of time.

One of the most moving examples of this

that I've ever read is from a book

called A Severe Mercy by a guy named

Sheldon Van Aram. U if you've never read

that book, I would encourage you to. He

was a young man absolutely in love with

this young lady and before they were

Christians, all they could see was their

love for each other. And they created

this thing called the shining barrier

that they would use to try to protect

and nurture and foster and cultivate and

strengthen their love for each other.

So, long story short, hopefully this

isn't spoiling the book, but you know,

they go to Oxford, they meet CS Lewis,

they convert to Christianity, they fall

in love with Jesus, and their love is

properly ordered under Jesus's love. And

then the wife, Davey, gets sick and

dies,

like 30ome years old.

And the severe mercy is about him coming

to grips with a reality that no matter

what he did, no matter how hard they

tried to create this perfect, beautiful

bubble, like it didn't matter in the

end. She died and there was nothing he

could do about it.

The future they had imagined was gone.

The life they had carefully built and

constructed was interrupted by

circumstances completely outside of

either of their control.

God used that to deepen his faith and to

draw him closer.

Through his suffering, Sheldon learned

that human relationships, no matter how

beautiful, can bear the weight of being

our ultimate source of meaning. It's a

really beautifully told story. He

discovers that true hope is not in

holding on to a season in life, but in

trusting the God who remains faithful

through all of life, including times of

loss. This is the reality Cohelith is

confronting in Ecclesiastes 3.

He's going to tell us that there is a

time to be born. There's a time to die.

There's a time to laugh and a time to

weep. A time to mourn and a time to

dance. In other words, life's unfolding

in seasons that you don't actually

really control.

We're not in charge of the times we find

ourselves in in life.

They just kind of happen.

And what we can do is learn to trust the

God who appoints these times. This my

main point today from the book of

Ecclesiastes.

Peace is not found in controlling time.

Peace is not found in controlling the

kind of time you're in. Only in trusting

the God who governs it. Please open your

Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

Before we read, I'm going to just

remember what we've reminded so far. So

in chapters 1 and two, the great king,

the Solomon has begun this great quest

of trying to figure out where is gain.

What can I do that's of ultimate

significance? What can I do that matters

in the long run?

He's looked everywhere.

He's looked everywhere under the sun.

And yet everywhere he's looked, he's

reached the same conclusion. None of

this provides lasting fulfillment. Not

wealth, not prestige, not pleasure, not

the pursuit of wisdom itself. None of

these things give me anything solid I

can hold on to and that will ultimately

matter in the end. Why? Because death

eventually takes everything away.

Because no matter how wise you get, the

world just remains frustratingly out of

your control.

And having shown us the limits of human

wisdom and striving, Cohel now turns in

chapter 3 to one of the fundamental

reasons for that frustration. We are

creatures bound by time. So let's read

uh Ecclesiastes chapter 3 beginning

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

verse 1 through verse 15.

For everything there is a season and a

time for every matter under heaven. A

time to be born and a time to die. A

time to plant and a time to pluck up

what is planted. A time to kill and a

time to heal. A time to break down and a

time to build up. A time to weep and a

time to laugh. A time to mourn and a

time to dance. A time to cast away

stones

and a time to gather stones together. A

time to embrace and a time to refrain

from embracing. A time to seek and a

time to lose. A time to keep and a time

to cast away. A time to tear and a time

to sew. A time to keep silence and a

time to speak. A time to love and a time

to hate. A time for war and a time for

peace.

What gain has the worker from this toil?

I've seen the business God has given to

the children of man to be busy with.

He's made everything beautiful in its

time. Also, he has put eternity into

man's heart, yet so that he cannot find

out what God has done from the beginning

to the end. I perceive that there is

nothing better for them to be joyful and

to do good as long as they live. Also,

that everyone should eat and drink and

take pleasure in all his toil. This is

God's gift to man.

I perceive that whatever God does

endures forever. Nothing can be added to

it, nor can anything be taken away from

it. God has done it so that people fear

before him. That which is already has

been. that which is to be already has

been. And God seeks what has been driven

away. This is the word of the Lord. God,

would you seal these truths upon our

heart in Christ's name, amen?

All right, we're going to look at three

things in our text today. We're going to

look at the truth about our times.

Second, we're going to look at living in

our times. And third, we're going to

consider God in time. So, let's start

with the truth about our times.

Looking down at verse one, Cohelith

begins, the author begins by laying out

a somewhat ominous claim.

There's a time for everything,

for every matter under heaven. He says,

on the one hand, there's going to be a

time for all the good stuff that you

like, like laughing and dancing and

sewing and reaping and so forth.

But alongside each and every good thing,

he asserts there is also a season and a

time for bad things. For death, for

plucking, for breaking down, for

weeping, for hating.

And although this passage, it presents

itself with a certain symmetry. There's

a time and season for good and for bad.

It sort of lands with a grim realism.

There are going to be good times and bad

times, hard times and easy times, happy

times and sad times, days of bright and

optimistic beginnings and days of tragic

sorry ends. There's nothing we can do

about it.

He goes so far as to say there's going

to be a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

That is not offering any sort of moral

justification for hating or for warfare.

is to say rather that every kind of

thing, every kind of experience, every

kind of feeling has been appointed for

mankind under the sun. It's just the way

that it is. He keeps using the time for

this, the time for that. It's called

like a the figure of speech is called a

meism. You say everything from this to

that is appointed for men under the sun.

The two extremes of the spectrum to

emphasize the totality of everything in

between.

Verses

1-8 are like a hardcore example of a

bunch of meisms. For everything there is

a season. Every matter there is a time.

A time to be born and a time to die. All

of life. A time to plant. A time to

pluck up what is planted. All of

harvest. A time to kill. A time to heal.

The totality of human relationships.

He is setting couplets next to each

other at different ends of a spectrum to

stress the totality of all that's in

between. What he is saying is that the

truth about our times is that there is a

season and a time for everything and

it's not in your control.

The times for these things appear to

have been set. But they're not set by

us. You make a plan. Your life is on a

schedule. It's on a clock and everything

seems to be on someone else's schedule.

You start doing this something and then

oh no this thing happened and gosh that

upset my entire plan. It's just one

thing after another like that in our

lives. You plan a fun vacation. You're

excited to go and you get there and

apparently it's not time to have fun

yet. It's time to have that argument

we've been avoiding for the last 6

months.

You make plans. You're about to act on

them. And then suddenly for reasons that

are completely beyond your control

things happen and you can't execute. You

can't do it.

Even bigger than that, all of life, even

the stuff you care most about, are not

things you can control. Everything's

always shifting and fluid and unstable.

You find yourselves in these really

good, sweet, precious seasons, and you

can't freeze it or slow it down.

You can't do anything, it seems, to

avoid or mitigate or minimize the

seasons of tragedy and pain. You can't

plan for them. You can't put them on

their your calendar and schedule them

according to your will. They simply

impose themselves on you when they

decide it's time. When someone decides

it's time and the person that decides it

is not us.

And the reason I think Solomon is

bringing this up is because this appears

to be another element of life that he's

tested with wisdom. I can't find wis

meaning in wisdom. He says, I can't find

gain in pleasure or prestige or work.

What about creating certain kinds of

time? What about figuring out how to

make every day like vacation?

What about trying to create glory

moments out of every moment? What about

trying to be like Sheldon and Davey in a

severe mercy? What about that?

He's saying you might find some of that

under the sun. It's just that you're

also going to find everything else. All

of them have a season and those seasons

all come and those seasons all go. And

the reason this passage feels ominous is

because he's saying it's not just the

good times that are appointed. It is in

fact bad times too.

You will find golden moments with people

that you care about. It's just that that

other stuff is also coming down the

pike.

And this whole paragraph

is trying to trying to get us to reckon

with this uncomfortable reality.

It looks and feels like no matter what

we do, much of our life is happening

according to someone else's plan, some

inaccessible plan. And so much of what

we do and so much of how we experience

life is us being forced to respond to

circumstances that were never in our

control.

All these things are truly in their very

essence he

vapor. We can't hold on the good or the

bad. It comes like a beautiful or a

terrible vapor. It's here for a while

and then it's gone. And of course, that

is both good and bad news.

Some of you are going through really

difficult things right now and you're

suffering or you're struggling or

someone you love is in pain and it feels

like this is the worst season ever.

That season

is appointed for a time and then it will

end just like everything else.

The good news is that all of our sorrow,

all our of our suffering are only

appointed for a time. They do not last

forever. All things eventually pass

because God has appointed a time for

everything, both sorrow and laughter.

On the other hand, maybe you're living

in a really sweet time that you don't

want to end. Of course, the bad news is

it does end because everything ends.

Eventually,

you have to be the adult. It turns out

I remember being in high school and

going surfing every day with my friends.

I feel like, man, this is what a great

life I live. And of course, I'm not

responsible for anybody. There's no one

depending on me. Now, every day I wake

up, there's a whole gaggle of people who

need my attention and time.

But that season also will end.

Some of us are in really hard seasons

that feel like they will never end. And

one of the glories of Solomon's

realization is that he clarifies that

it's just not true. Hard things do come,

but those same hard things will go.

Others of you are really anxious about a

season that's coming. You can see a big

change on the edge of the horizon and

you don't know yet if it's going to be

good or bad. You can breathe easy,

brother, sister, because it's probably

going to contain great stuff and it's

probably going to contain hard stuff

because it's a time for everything under

the sun.

You might control some tertiary elements

of what happens to you. But everything

you do, both happy and sad, is going to

massively be massively affected by

things that are just not under your

control. You might get a great job and

have a terrible coworker. You might find

a great house but have a difficult

neighbor. You might find a great church

that has horrible preaching.

Hopefully that's not your

All these things are appointed for their

season. All these kinds of days have

been set in motion before the foundation

of the world and they just lay right

outside of our ability to grasp and

control.

This has been a very long way of saying

you will not find peace. There is no

peace to be found in trying to control

the big things in your life.

There's no peace to be found in trying

to control the kind of season you're

living in. And the reason you will never

find peace in trying to control it is

because it is not something you're ever

going to be able to control. We are not

masters of our times. We live in time

and under time and with time.

We are not sovereign and every kind of

time has been appointed and there's

nothing we can do to stop it. That's the

simple truth about our times.

So let's now transition to how we live

in time.

So what? We can't master time. Time

seems to be unfolding according to

someone else's agenda.

What can we do with that fact? Well,

Solomon ponders the same question again

he's been asking since the third verse

of the first chapter. What gain has the

worker for his toil? Or what gain is

found in trying to do this?

What can be gained by the energy and

effort we exert to control our time?

I've seen the business, he says, that

God has given to the children of man to

be busy with. I've looked at time and

seen that man is not its master.

Further, I've considered all that man

does to try and get a grip of the

unrelenting march of time, and I've seen

that that too is he. It's like grasping

vapor on a cold morning.

And then we experience just the most

delightful surprise.

Every time I read it again, it's like it

surprises me. He, it says, being God in

verse 10, he has made everything

beautiful in its time. And also, not

just that, he's put eternity into man's

heart. yet so that he cannot find out

what God has done from the beginning to

the end. The word for beautiful there

means fitting, proper, appropriate,

best. He has made everything fit just

the way it needed to for things to be

the best.

This is touching on a really, really,

really deep, really, really profound

aspect of wisdom that human beings are

just sort of scratching the surface of.

He is not saying that everything is

beautiful including human evil. God

hates evil and God judges evil. He is

saying God is using everything including

that which man means for evil for good

in a way that's fitting.

When hard and terrible things happen in

our lives, the most natural thing in the

world, what almost all of us

instinctively do is go, "Why, Lord? Why

would you let this happen to me?

Why are you allowing this?

And the fact of the matter is that when

things like that are happening to you,

my notes are out of order. Uh oh.

Whoa. Am I just missing a

I'm straight up missing a page of notes.

Wow. Okay.

So, this is a first.

Are these in order 789?

>> Yeah, it'll this two will pass. Stell

says

okay. Well,

let's see what just comes out. Okay.

God's made everything beautiful. God's

made everything fitting. And horrible

things happen. And in the moment, you

think to yourself, "How could this be

happening? What is this for? How could

this be good?" And you're not really

prepared to assess it when you're in the

middle of it.

But I think the older people in here

will agree that often times you look

back on those times in your life and you

think to yourself, "Wow, I really did

not understand what God was doing, but I

can now see in retrospect how God was

using that to make me stronger. How God

was teaching me about his love and

sacrifice and humility. How God was

showing me how to be a better version of

myself in the imitation of Christ Jesus

through what I experienced in that

suffering and pain.

I didn't I would have never wanted that.

I would have never asked for it. But

we're broken people. We need travail. We

need to struggle through difficult

challenging things in order to grow. I

don't know why that is, but that is the

truth.

So that's the first thing. God made

everything beautiful in its time. I feel

like I had like great illustrations and

examples of this. My note, where could

my note have gone? Um,

additionally, it says that God set

eternity in our hearts so that we can't

figure out what he's up to.

There's this part of us that he made to

long for permanence, to long for the

eternal, to long for a final justice, to

long for a day without sorrow and tears

and death. And it's so funny that he

made us with that because none of us

have ever experienced it.

None of you have ever experienced

perfect justice done exactly right in

the world. And yet you know

there's a part of you that knows that

that's how things ought to be. None of

us have never had the experience of

something permanent and unchangeable and

good. We've experienced the good and

we've experienced the loss of the good.

We've never just had it forever and yet

we long for it. God set this thing in

our heart and it's all it's there in all

of you. I don't need to make an

argument. You feel it in your soul.

And yet given that he didn't give us

enough to understand fully what he was

doing. It says he cannot find out what

God has done from the beginning to the

end. We know that we're made for

something beyond this world. We know

that we long for this thing that we've

never actually experienced. And he

doesn't tell us enough that we can trust

him without faith.

He designed this relationship to be one

where we have to learn to just trust

him. Trust him that he's good. Trust him

that he loves us and that he's going to

stabilize our times. That he's going to

meet us in the difficult things. That

he's going to give us everything we need

to be strong through it by faith.

I cannot believe I do not have my This

is the weirdest

I'm just going to jump in right here.

Once we stop looking to our own ability

to understand everything, once we stop

trusting ourselves to figure this whole

thing out, we're free to start trusting

him.

Once we let go of the idea that if God

just explained everything to me, then I

would trust him.

Once we let go of that, we're free to

trust him. The longer you tell yourself,

if I just understand everything, if he

just explains it all first, then I'll

put my faith in him. It's like, first of

all, if he explained it all to you, you

wouldn't understand. He's playing 10D

chess and you live in a 3D world. How

are you going to understand what the

almighty is thinking? I mean, it's good

to let yourself reflect on that. I think

once you accept that the answer isn't

answers, but the answer is trust, you're

set free to enjoy the good for the good

it is, and you're free to accept the bad

for the passing shadow that it is.

Verse 12 says, I perceive that there was

nothing better for them than to be

joyful and to do good as long as they

live.

Let me tell you, those two things are

more connected than I ever would have

imagined as a younger person.

When you're a little kid, you think, "If

I just get the cookie and eat it, let's

say I steal it so mom doesn't see I get

to eat it and I get away with it, then

I'll have joy because I got to eat a

sweet treat." But then you do and you

get away with it and now you're a thief

and you're living with that guilt.

When you grow up, you think to yourself,

"Well, I'll get a job and I'll work and

I'll earn my own money and I'll bake my

own cookies and then I'll eat the

cookies and they'll taste really good."

And then you do it and you eat them and

you're like, "Wonder how many calories

that was just now."

And then you start following Christ

and you start walking along people that

you learn to care about, you learn to

love through the ups and downs. And you

start thinking, I'm going to bake

cookies to share with them and we're

going to enjoy these couple of these

cookies together.

And you start to realize that joy and

love are connected.

These cookies offered as a sacrifice of

love. In doing good, in doing good, you

will find joy. It's more blessed to give

than to receive. That's what that means.

Maybe you're thinking, I think I know

how to do good. I know how to imitate

Christ. I know how to obey God's word. I

know how to fear him. I know how to do

his will. Okay, got that. How do I be

joyful?

Is that something I can control? I used

to wonder that for myself. Can I control

how I feel? Is God is God just telling

me to put on a face, act joyful even

though I feel terrible inside? No.

He's saying be joyful. And the way to be

joyful is to take pleasure in all the

good that God gives by receiving it with

thankfulness for what it is, something

intended for your good.

It says, "Eat, drink, and take pleasure

in your work."

Don't look at those things as a way to

find permanence and meaning in the

world. Don't treat them like idols. that

will crush you.

Receive them as a present, as a every

day you wake up, God is like, "Here,

good things for you to try and eat and

enjoy.

Good work for you to do that matters and

that you're going to find blesses you."

I think the call to enjoy food and drink

and work as God's gift is almost a

metaphor for talking about everything.

He's referring to the simple universal

things of life that we all do together.

We all eat, we all drink, and we all

have work we have to do. I think that's

a simple summary of all the goods of

creation. I think the smell of flowers,

the view of a sunrise, the sound of a

spring shower,

you know, that first sip of hot coffee

on a cold morning, the light shimmering

off the dew of the grass when you first

wake up and it's still frigid outside.

We should rejoice and give thanks for

these things for they are all this says

God's gift to man. It is God's

deliberate act of kindness to show you

to reveal to you how much he loves you

and how adamantly he intends to make all

things beautiful in their time.

It's good to enjoy these gifts as you

can while you can. And it's good to

share these kinds of things with one

another. But you should receive them

with a recognition that they've been

given to us as a gift so that we have

joy in this world. I mean, I I feel like

I've said this recently, but it's it's

good to reflect on like food didn't have

to taste good.

That's a gift.

The ocean didn't have to be beautiful.

The way that we make children didn't

have to be as awesome as it is.

God just did that as a gift. I mean, if

sorry if you're married, okay, but

look, I've been going without notes for

a little while here. You have to

please don't don't judge me. Um,

it's good to share these things. It's

good to enjoy these things. It's good,

but it's you do so recognizing, wow,

this all is awesome because you love us.

This all is awesome because you're kind.

This is all the way that it is because

you're a loving God who wants to fill me

with joy that I might obey your

commandments all my days.

Life in time is beyond our control.

And yet it is not beyond all control. It

is filled with gifts from your creator

as you experience the good and the bad,

the right and the wrong, the hard and

the easy. Let's now close by considering

what this has to say about God in time.

Verse 14. I perceive that whatever God

does endures forever. Nothing can be

added to it nor anything taken away from

it. God has done it so that people fear

before him.

So it turns out after looking at all the

he of the world and being like this is

all ephemeral. I can't grab onto

anything. It turns out that there is

something enduring and permanent that

which God does.

God alone has the ability to set things

in place so that they can never be

moved. God alone

has the ability to give ultimate meaning

and a movable and perpetual purpose in

the universe. And this says that he set

things up this way on purpose. He

created your eternal longings. He

created you with a deep desire for

permanence and then made the world in

such a way so that the only permanence

you will ever find in the universe is

from him. I wonder if that was on

purpose.

He did it this way so that you would

learn to fear him, to revere him, to

reflect on how powerful and everlasting

he is as the only one, the only thing

that stands over and above time.

to appreciate

how in a universe that is constantly

changing and where everything seems to

be he, there exists over us an

unchanging and unfading

permanent God.

My sons are watching me age.

They point out sometimes that my hair is

getting a lot grayer. And I'm sure you

know you've been at church for a while

have just watched that change happen.

And it's just a small token of a greater

change that I'm getting older and I'm

going to get older and older.

And I made that doctor's appointment

before you ask that I talked about last

week

and I'm going to weaken and then one day

I'm going to die.

And there's nothing I can do to stop

that.

They will see these things, God willing.

They will watch me perish from this

world and enter into my hope and my

inheritance with joy.

And the only things I'll be able to

leave behind are what I was able to give

them while I was here. And yet, God did

it this way on purpose.

He did it this way on purpose so that

they will come to grips with as much as

their dad loves them and desires to give

them a life that I'm not forever. I'm

not permanent. There's only one who is

and it's God. And they ought to turn and

seek the God of their father. They ought

to seek to walk in the ways of the God

who made us all. Because only in him do

we have that which is permanent. this

home, this life,

this work,

this living that we've done, we've

worked so hard to create for our kids,

it's not permanent. Only God is

permanent. Only God can say to the sun,

"You will follow this path along this

line, and you will not stray to the left

or the right. Only God can do that. Only

God can set the stars in place. Only God

can look at the ocean and say, you will

go this far and no further." That's

God's prerogative. It's not yours and

it's not mine and it never will be.

Only God can ever say to my children or

to you in a way that really means

something,

I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you.

I will never change. And my steadfast

love for you endures forever.

My love for you in Christ Jesus is

literally stronger than death.

And nothing anyone anywhere can do to

change that.

There is permanence.

There is something lasting in this world

and it's found in God in fearing him and

obeying his voice.

God in verse 15 says he has established

the world. So that which has happened

before will just keep happening again.

Nothing new will ever come under the

sun. He also we cannot alter this cycle

of unbreenting unchanging change. It's

just going to keep happening. All we can

do is trust God who seeks what's been

driven away.

That last sentence there is a very

difficult sentence in Hebrew to

translate. Um, it could mean a couple of

different things. Rather than going down

the rabbit trail of of that question,

I'm just going to tell you what I think

it means. I think what it's saying is

things come and go and they come and go

again, but God remembers all of it. From

our perspective, it comes and goes,

comes and goes. But from him, he doesn't

forget. He keeps a grip on all that has

happened in the past.

And God will never forget.

The way time appears to us is not the

way time truly is. God is the one who's

fixed all the seasons. God has appointed

all things to be beautiful in their

time. And God has fixed the day for

judgment.

That's what this means, I think, where

he will recall back. He will bring back

those things that have come and gone and

appear to us to be passed away. and he

will assign meaning and value to all

that we've done and said,

listen,

you are never going to be able to

control time and life the way you want.

You are never going to be able to govern

and determine for yourselves the kind of

time you find yourself in at any given

time of life, no matter how much you

would hope to.

You can either hate and resist that fact

and fight against it, strive against it,

or you can accept it as a fact and put

your faith in the God over time,

the God who controls time, the God who

grasps time in his very hand.

You can accept that and choose to enjoy

the good he gives us while he's given us

the ability to enjoy it.

The fact that you long for permanence

and for perfection and for a day without

sorrow or tears is not meant to drive

you to obsessively try to control. It's

meant to drive you to the God who made

you and loves you and who is seeking to

redeem you in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the only one who has ever

entered into time and done something

truly different. Jesus is the only one

who's lived a perfect life without sin.

Jesus is the only one who after having

been crucified and buried was raised

again never to ever die again. Only one.

First guy ever.

He is the only one that we can truly

grasp. His death and resurrection is the

only thing in life that is not in the

end he hell. His life and death and

resurrection is the only thing that can

bring forgiveness for our sins and new

birth from above and the promise of a

world without death and the promise of

the resurrection of our body and the

certainty and shity of judgment making

all of our deeds in this world

meaningful.

If you want to rerun Solomon's tests,

you can do that. There's nothing saying

you can't.

hope for a different result.

Or you could receive this information as

as it's intended, as a gift, as a gift

to teach your heart to seek God, to seek

God in Christ.

You cannot control things. You cannot

hold time. Only God can. We will never

be able to squeeze permanence or meaning

out of anything in this world. And so

go home and enjoy the taste of fruit.

Go home and tell each other you love

each other. Go home and enjoy the taste

of chocolate and the sight of the trees

and the sounds of birds.

Enjoy your covenant. Snuggle and squeeze

your children while they're young. Laugh

at stupid jokes.

And receive it all with thankfulness as

a It's a gift. It's a gift to be enjoyed

and used, not hoarded and trying to

build upon.

These are foretastes of a better future

in Christ. Peace will never be found in

trying to control time, only in trusting

the one who governs it. Let's pray.