What Do You Do When You're in a Season You Didn't Choose?

By Pastor John Erickson

There are seasons of life I would gladly choose.

The seasons when everybody is healthy, the family is doing well, work is going smoothly, and there is actually time to enjoy it.

And then there are the seasons I would prefer to skip entirely.

Have you ever felt that way? You look at your circumstances and think, I didn't sign up for this. I would like to exchange this season for another one, please.

Ecclesiastes 3 has something to say about that.

It isn't always the answer I want. But I think it's an answer I need.

Life Keeps Changing

The chapter begins with a familiar statement: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Then the Teacher gives us a series of opposites.

A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.

We tend to gravitate toward one side of those lists.

I would prefer laughing to mourning. Building to tearing down. Healing to being wounded.

But the Teacher refuses to let me pretend that the whole of life can be squeezed into my preferred half of the list.

There really are different seasons, and we don't get to choose all of them.

We have had vacations interrupted by trips to the emergency room with our children. You plan time away to enjoy your family, and suddenly you are doing something you would never have put on the itinerary. The contrast between what we hoped for and what actually happened is not merely an idea on a page.

If you've raised kids, you know how quickly things change. You finally figure out how to keep an infant happy, and then the baby starts crawling. You babyproof the house, and then they start climbing. Just as you feel like you know what you're doing, the entire assignment changes.

It would be nice if life came with a pause button.

Sometimes We Need to Zoom Out

I used to be a children's pastor, and I enjoy a good object lesson. One illustration I used involved close-up pictures of ordinary household items.

Sugar. Steel wool. A knife. Coffee.

When you zoom in close enough, it can be surprisingly hard to tell what you're looking at. The ordinary becomes mysterious.

But then the picture zooms out. Suddenly it makes sense.

I think that's a pretty good description of how we experience difficult seasons.

We're so close to what is happening that we can't see anything else. We're trying to understand the whole picture from one little corner.

And sometimes God doesn't give us the zoomed-out view we wish we had.

We Want Control-or at Least an Explanation

I don't know about you, but I like to be the one driving.

My work in insurance has exposed me to plenty of claims, and sometimes when Gina drives, my mind jumps to things I have seen go wrong. She has her own concerns when I am behind the wheel, particularly my ability to get lost or choose a route that is not exactly efficient.

If I head in an unexpected direction, I had better have an explanation. Apparently, 'Don't worry, I've got it' is not always a satisfying navigation plan.

We both want to know where we're going and why we're getting there this way.

It's a funny little thing in our marriage, but I think it exposes something larger.

When we can't control a situation, we at least want to understand it.

God, if I have to go through this, would you please tell me why? Could you show me the entire plan? Maybe a flowchart would help.

Then we reach Ecclesiastes 3:11.

It says God has made everything beautiful in its time, and has set eternity in the human heart. But no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

No one.

Not even the wise Teacher who is writing these words.

I find that maddening. I want to know. I want the explanation.

But I also find it oddly comforting. Scripture doesn't require me to pretend that I understand what I don't understand.

Trust Isn't the Same as Understanding

We need to handle the phrase "everything beautiful in its time" carefully.

It does not mean that every cruel act, every tragedy, or every loss is beautiful. The Teacher has already named times of weeping, dying, and tearing apart. He is not denying the pain.

He is reminding us that our limited perspective is not the whole story.

I can see the piece of life I'm living right now. I don't see every beginning, every end, or everything God is doing beyond my vision.

And that is a difficult place to live, because it asks for trust.

Sometimes we assume that faith means we'll receive a satisfying explanation for everything. But often faith means following God when we don't have that explanation.

It is possible to trust someone without understanding every decision they make. In fact, that's what trust is for.

How Do We Live in the Season We're In?

Ecclesiastes doesn't tell us to spend our entire lives waiting for a better season.

A few verses later, the Teacher reminds us to receive the good gifts of living, working, and enjoying what God has given.

We are invited to live in the season we actually have, not only the season we wish were here.

My children once asked me why the sky is blue and why sunsets have those red and orange colors. I knew it had something to do with light, but I could not give them a very good explanation.

Yet Gina and I could walk together in the evening, see a beautiful sunset over Chambers, and enjoy it. I did not have to finish a science lesson before being thankful for what was in front of us.

That does not explain suffering. A sunset cannot make a loss small. It simply reminds me that receiving a good gift does not require understanding everything about it. Even in an unwelcome season, there may be moments of beauty we are allowed to receive.

That doesn't mean we stop praying for change. It doesn't mean we refuse help or resign ourselves to unnecessary suffering.

It means that while we pray, work, grieve, and hope, we also trust that God sees more than we do.

Maybe you're in a season you would never have chosen. You don't need to call it pleasant. You don't need to manufacture an answer to the question of why.

But you can ask, "Lord, how do I walk faithfully with you here?"

You may not have the whole picture.

The God you trust does.