There Is A Season And A Time

"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."  -From Ecclesiastes 3 (ESV)

". . .  it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. . ."   -From Hebrews 9

In May of 2013, this blog was born with an entry entitled "What Am I Doing Here?" This was meant to explain why the blog was being written. Today the same question comes to my mind and it is a more serious question. Right now the question relates to why I am still living on this earth. In the general sense, the answer is clear as can be and that is, "God has a plan and a purpose".

Circumstances over the past week have convinced me without a doubt that I have stepped into 2014 because of God's miraculous intervention and that He still has a purpose for me on this journey we call life. Last week I had a brush with death and today I am at my desk writing another entry to this blog. I have His gift of hours, weeks, or years with my family and to accomplish what He puts before me.

My earnest prayer to the Lord is to ask of Him, "help me to be the person You created me to be." God's ways are perfect, but left on my own I would just be stumbling around in the dark. My desire is to walk closely to Him, "all the days of my life".

It is a comfort to know that God is in control -- and He has been in control from before my beginning. Psalm 139 is an amazing one. Let me quote a couple of verses:

"Nothing about me
    is hidden from you!
I was secretly woven together
    deep in the earth below,

but with your own eyes
    you saw my body being formed.
Even before I was born,
you had written in your book
    everything I would do."  (CEV)

Think about it! God is definitely NOT the "prime mover" who set everything in motion and then just stepped back and let things go.

He is intimately involved in our lives in the good times and in the hard times. He is moved with compassion as we journey through this broken, sinful world. (I look forward to the day He restores it all!) 

Because He knows every breath: the first one and the last one, I can trust Him completely. NOTHING can touch me without His permission. ALL the triumphs and trials of this life are being knit together for GOOD and to His glory. 

In 1833, John Henry Newman wrote a prayerful hymn:

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me."

He ends it with these words that describe the attitude of the trusting heart:

"Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith,

 Home to my God

 To rest forever after earthly strife

 In the calm light of everlasting life." 

With our hands in His, let's walk anywhere He leads us for this season and for this time and until our journey is done.