For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 reads:

“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven—A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear 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 throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; 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.” (NASB)

In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon pulls over from his journey into philosophy and stops long enough to write a practical analysis of time. After pondering the whole idea of not being able to enjoy life apart from God, the writer breaks life down into measurable chunks which he calls “events.” “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven” (3:1 NASB 1995). Following that opening line, he names no less than fourteen contrasts in life, all of them familiar scenes...almost like a cross section of life.

Solomon gave us a long list of opposites. 14 are positive; 14 are negative. In some ways they seem to cancel out each other, so that the net result is zero. Many of these tensions leave me on a dead-end street. What’s the profit?

That’s not only the point of this section, that’s the message of this entire journal. Under the sun, when you slice life across the middle and analyze all the strata. When you boil it down to its basics and put yourself into it every day, there’s zero in it for you! That is, if it’s only a horizontal trip from birth to death. If you leave God out of the scene, times to laugh are empty. Times that kill are frightening. Times to mourn seem forever as do times of throwing stones. It’s all so empty. What a miserable cycle! What’s the profit?

The second question is: What’s the purpose? Where’s life going? You will not learn from the universities where life is going. Universities aren’t designed to tell you where it’s going. They’re equipped to help you question life. You graduate having learned the questions...not the answers. And in our humanistic world, there is this sophisticated idea that people are getting brighter and brighter when, in fact, they are becoming increasingly more confused. And Solomon asks, “Where is it going?” “What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?” (3:9 NASB 1995).

Now, let’s not kid each other. This chapter has endured just long enough to get most of you bored. I can tell. It’s by design. (Solomon planned it that way, not I.) It’s to show you how futile and empty life is. We’re just about convinced, aren’t we? What we need are some conclusions that take away the futility.

Taken from Living on the Ragged Edge by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 1985, 2004 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com